V.' KJ 



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02 

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THE POET 



AT 



THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



He talks with his Fellow-boarders 
and the Reader 



TWENTY-FOURTH EDITION 




BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 

1887 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872^ 

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at WashingtoiL 



48 65 5 5 

JUL Z u 1942 



PREFACE. 



In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table con' 
versations, a slight dramatic back-ground shows off a 
few talkers and writers, aided by certain silent super- 
numeraries. The machinery is much like that of 
the two preceding series. Some of the characters 
must seem like old acquaintances to those who have 
read the former papers. As I read these over for 
the first time for a number of years, I notice one 
character representing a class of beings who have 
greatly multiplied during the interval which sepa- 
rates the earlier and later Breakfast-Table papers, — 
I mean the scientific specialists. The entomologist, 
who confines himself rigidly to the study of the 
coleoptera, is intended to typify this class. The sub- 
division of labor, which, as we used to be told, re- 
quired fourteen different workmen to make a single 
pin, has reached all branches of knowledge. We 
find new terms in all the professions, implying that 
special provinces have been marked off, each having 
its own school of students. In theology we have 
many curious subdivisions ; among the rest escha- 
tology, that is to say, the geography, geology, etc., of 
the " undiscovered country ; " in medicine, if the 
surgeon who deals with dislocations of the right 
shoulder declines to meddle with a displacement on 



IV PREFACE. 

the other side, we are not surprised, but ring the bell 
of the practitioner who devotes himself to injuries of 
the left shoulder. 

On the other hand, we have had or have the ency- 
clopaedic intelligences like Cuvier, Buckle, and more 
emphatically Herbert Spencer, who take all knowl- 
edge, or large fields of it, to be their province. The 
author of " Thoughts on the Universe " has some- 
thing in common with these, but he appears also to 
have a good deal about him of what we call the 
humorist ; that is, an individual with a somewhat 
heterogeneous personality, in which various distinctly 
human elements are mixed together, so as to form 
a kind of coherent and sometimes pleasing whole, 
which is to a symmetrical character as a breccia is to 
a mosaic. 

As for the young astronomer, his rhythmical dis- 
course may be taken as expressing the reaction of 
what some would call " the natural man " against the 
unnatural beliefs which he found in that lower world 
to which he descended by day from his midnight 
home in the firmament. 

I have endeavored to give fair play to the protest 
of gentle and reverential conservatism in the letter 
of the Lady, which was not copied from, but sug- 
gested by, one which I received long ago from a lady 
bearing an honored name, and which I read thought- 
fully and with profound respect. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

December, 1882. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



L 



The idea of a man's "interviewing" himself is 
rather odd, to be sure. But then that is what we aris 
all of us doing every day. I talk half the time to find 
out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets 
inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light 
all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his 
inventory. 

— You don't know what your thoughts are going 
to be beforehand ? said the " Member of the Haouse," 
as he calls himself. 

— Why, of course I don't. Bless your honest 
legislative soul, I suppose I have as many bound vol- 
umes of notions of one kind and another in my head 
as you have in your Representatives' library up there 
at the State House. I have to tumble them over and 
over, and open them in a hundred places, and some- 
times cut the leaves here and there, to find what I 
think about this and that. And a good many people 
who flatter themselves they are talking wisdom to me, 



2 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

are only helping me to get at the shelf and the book 
and the page where I shall find my own opinion about 
the matter in question. 

— The Member's eyes began to look heavy. 

— It's a very queer place, that receptacle a man 
fetches his talk out of. The library comparison does 
n't exactly hit it. You stow away some idea and don't 
want it, say for ten years. When it turns up at last it 
has got so jammed and crushed out of shape by the 
other ideas packed with it, that it is no more like 
what it was than a raisin is like a grape on the vine, 
or a fig from a drum like one hanging on the tree. 
Then, again, some kinds of thoughts breed in the dark 
of one's mind like the blind fishes in the Mammoth 
Cave. We can't see them and they can't see us ; but 
sooner or later the daylight gets in and we find that 
some cold, fishy little negative has been spawning all 
over our beliefs, and the brood of blind questions it 
has given birth to are burrowing round and under and 
butting their blunt noses against the pillars of faith 
we thought the whole world might lean on. And 
then, again, some of our old beliefs are dying out every 
year, and others feed on them and grow fat, or get 
poisoned as the case may be. And so, you see, you 
can't tell what the thoughts are that you have got 
salted down, as one may say, till you run a streak of 
talk through them, as the market people run a butter- 
scoop through a firkin. 

Don't talk, thinking you are going to find out your 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 

neighbor, for jou won't do it, but talk to find out 
yourself. There is more of you — and less of you, in 
spots, very likely — than you know. 

— The Member gave a slight but unequivocal start 
just here. It does seem as if perpetual somnolence 
was the price of listening to other people's wisdom. 
This was one of those transient nightmares that one 
may have in a doze of twenty seconds. He thought a 
certain imaginary Committee of Safety of a certain 
imaginary Legislature was proceeding to burn down 
his haystack, in accordance with an Act, entitled an 
Act to make the Poor Richer by making the Rich 
Poorer. And the chairman of the committee was in- 
stituting a forcible exchange of hats with him, to his 
manifest disadvantage, for he had just bought him a 
new beaver. He told this dream afterwards to one 
of the boarders. 

There was nothing very surprising, therefore, in 
his asking a question not very closely related to what 
had gone before. 

— Do you think they mean business ? 

— I beg your pardon, but it would be of material 
assistance to me in answering your question if I knew 
who " they " might happen to be. 

— Why, those chaps that are setting folks on to 
bum us all up in our beds. Political firebugs we call 
'em up our way. Want to substitoot the match-box 
for the ballot-box. Scare all our old women half to 
death. 



4 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— — ah — yes — to be sure. I don't believe 
they say what the papers put in their mouths any 
more than that a friend of mine wrote the letter about 
Worcester's and Webster's Dictionaries, that he had 
to disown the other day. These newspaper fellows 
are half asleep when they make up their reports at 
two or three o'clock in the morning, and fill out the 
speeches to suit themselves. I do remember some 
things that sounded pretty bad, — about as bad as 
nitro-glycerine, for that matter. But I don't believe 
they ever said 'em, when they spoke their pieces, or if 
they said 'em I know they didn't mean 'em. Some- 
thing like this, wasn't it? If the majority didn't 
do something the minority wanted 'em to, then the 
people were to burn up our cities, and knock us 
down and jump on our stomachs. That was about 
the kind of talk, as the papers had it ; I don't wonder 
it scared the old women. 

— The Member was wide awake by this time. 

— I don't seem to remember of them partickler 
phrases, he said. 

— Dear me, no ; only levelling everything smack, 
and trampling us under foot, as the reporters made it 
out. That means fire, I take it, and knocking you 
down and stamping on you, whichever side of your 
person happens to be uppermost. Sounded like a 
threat ; meant, of course, for a warning. But I don't 
believe it was in the piece as they spoke it, — 
couldn't have been. Then, again, Paris wasn't to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 

blame, — as much as to say — so the old women 
thought — that New York or Boston would n't be to 
blame if it did the same thing. I Ve heard of po- 
litical gatherings where they barbecued an ox, but I 
can't think there 's a party in this country that wants 
to barbecue a city. But it is n't quite fair to frighten 
the old women, I don't doubt there are a great 
many people wiser than I am that would n't be hurt 
by a hint I am going to give them. It 's no mattei* 
what you say when you talk to yourself, but when you 
talk to other people, your business is to use words 
with reference to the way in which those other people 
are like to understand them. These pretended inflam-- 
matory speeches, so reported as to seem full of com- 
bustibles, even if they were as threatening as thej 
have been represented, would do no harm if read 
or declaimed in a man's study to his books, or by the 
sear-shore to the waves. But they are not so whole- 
some moral entertainment for the dangerous classes. 
Boys must not touch off their squibs and crackers too 
near the powder-magazine. This kind of speech 
does n't help on the millennium much. 

— It ain't jest the thing to grease your ex with lie 
o' vitrul, said the Member. 

— 'No J the wheel of progress mil soon stick fast if 
you do. You can't keep a dead level long, if you 
bum everything down flat to make it. Why, bless 
your soul, if all the cities of the world were reduced 
to ashes, you 'd have a new set of millionnaires in a 



6 THE POET AT THE BKEAK FAST-TABLE. 

couple of years or so, out of the trade in potash. In 
the mean time, what is the use of setting the man with 
the silver watch against the man with the gold watch, 
and the man without any watch against them both ? 

— You can't go agin human natur', said the Mem- 
ber. 

— You speak truly. Here we are travelling- 
through the desert together like the children of Israel. 
Some pick up more manna and catch more quails 
than others, and ought to help their hungry neighbors 
more than they do ; that will always be so until we 
come back to primitive Christianity, the road to which 
does not seem to be ma Paris, just now ; but we 
don't want the incendiary's pillar of a cloud by day 
and a pillar of fire by night to lead us in the march to 
civilization, and we don't want a Moses who will 
smite the rock, not to bring out water for our thirst, 
but petroleum to burn us all up with. 

— It is n't quite fair to run an opposition to the 
other funny speaker, Rev. Petroleum V. What's-his- 
name, — spoke up an anonymous boarder. 

— You may have been thinking, perhaps, that it 
was I, — I, the Poet, who was the chief talker in the 
one-sided dialogue to which you have been listening. 
If so, you were mistaken. It was the old man in the 
spectacles with large round glasses and the iron-gray 
hair. He does a good deal of the talking at our 
table, and, to tell the truth, I rather like to hear him. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 7 

He stirs me up, and finds me occupation in various 
ways, and especially, because he has good solid preju- 
dices, that one can rub against, and so get up and let t 
off a superficial intellectual irritation, just as the 1 
cattle rub their backs against a rail (you remember 
Sydney Smith's contrivance in his pasture) or their 
sides against an apple-tree (I don't know why they take 
to these so particularly, but you will often find the 
trunk of an apple-tree as brown and smooth as an old 
saddle at the height of a cow's ribs). I think they 
begin rubbing in cold blood, and then, you know, 
Vapjpdtit vient en mangeant, the more they rub the 
more they want to. That is the way to use your 
friend's prejudices. This is a sturdy-looking person- 
age of a good deal more than middle age, his face 
marked with strong manly furrows, records of hard 
thinking and square stand-up fights with life and all 
its devils. There is a slight touch of satire in his dis- 
course now and then, and an odd way of answering 
one that makes it hard to guess how much more or 
less he means than he seems to say. But he is 
honest, and always has a twinkle in his eye to put 
you on your guard when he does not mean to be 
taken quite literally. I think old Ben Franklin had 
just that look. I know his great-grandson (m pace !) 
had it, and I don't doubt he took it in the straight 
line of descent, as he did his grand intellect. 

The Member of the Haouse evidently comes from 
one of the lesser inland centres of civilization, where 



8 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the flora is rich in checkerberries and similar bounties 
of nature, and the fauna lively with squirrels, wood- 
chucks, and the like ; where the leading sportsmen 
snare patridges, as they are called, and " hunt " 
foxes with guns ; where rabbits are entrapped " in 
" figgery fours," and trout captured with the unpreten- 
tious earth-worm, instead of the gorgeous fly ; where 
they get prizes for butter and cheese, and rag-carpets 
executed by ladies more than seventy years of age ; 
where they wear dress-coats before dinner, and cock 
their hats on one side when they feel conspicuous and 
distinguished ; where they say Sir to you in their 
common talk, and have other Arcadian and bucolic 
ways which are highly unobjectionable, but are not so 
much admired in cities, where the people are said to 
be not half so virtuous. 

There is with us a boy of modest dimensions, not 
otherwise especially entitled to the epithet, who ought 
to be six or seven years old, to judge by the gap left 
by his front milk teeth, these Having resigned in favor 
of their successors, who have not yet presented their 
credentials. He is rather old for an enfant terrible, 
and quite too young to have grown into the bashful- 
ness of adolescence ; but he has some of the qualities 
of both these engaging periods of development. The 
Member of the Haouse calls him " Bub," invariably, 
which term I take to be an abbreviation of " Beelze- 
bub," as " 'bus " is the short form of " omnibus." 
Many eminently genteel persons, whose manners make 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 

them at home anywhere, being evidently unaware of 
the true derivation of this word, are in the habit of 
addressing all unknown children by one of the two 
terms, " bub " and " sis," which they consider endears 
them greatly to the young people, and recommends 
them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, 
if these happen to accompany them. The other board- 
ers commonly call our diminutive companion That 
Boy. He is a sort of expletive at the table, serving 
to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer does 
that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to get 
driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where 
there is a crevice. I shall not call that boy by the 
monosyllable referred to, because, though he has many 
impish traits at present, he may become civilized and 
humanized by being in good company. Besides, it is 
a term which I understand is considered vulgar by the 
nobility and gentry of the Mother Country, and it is 
not to be found in Mr, Worcester's Dictionary, on 
which, as is well known, the literary men of this 
metropolis are by special statute allowed to be sworn 
in place of the Bible. I know one, certainly, who 
never takes his oath on any other dictionary, any 
advertising fiction to the contrary, notwithstand- 
ing. 

I wanted to write out my account of some of the 
other boarders, but a domestic occurrence — a some- 
what prolonged visit from the landlady, who is rather 

too anxious that I should be comfortable — broke in 

1 * 



10 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

upon the continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned — 
in short, I gave up writing for that day, 

— I wonder if anything like this ever happened. 
Author writing, — 

" To he, or not to he : that is the question : — - 
Wliether 't is nohl — " 

— " William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flap- 
jacks ? " 

— " Flapjacks, an' it please thee, Anne, or a pud- 
ding, for that matter ; or what thou wilt, good woman, 
so thou come not betwixt me and my thought." 

— Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented clos- 
ing of the door and murmurs to the effect : " Ay, 
marry, 't is well for thee to talk as if thou hadst no 
stomach to fill. We poor wives must swink for our 
masters, while they sit in their arm-chairs growing as 
great in the girth through laziness as that ill-mannered 
old fat man William hath writ of in his books of 
players' stufi*. One had as well meddle with a pork- 
pen, which hath thorns all over him, as try to deal 
with William when his eyes be rolling in that mad 
way." 

William — writing once more — after an exclama- 
tion in strong English of the older pattern, — 

" Wliether 't is nohler — nohler — nohler — 
To do what ? these women ! these women ! to 
have puddings or flapjacks ! Oh ! — 

" Wliether H is nohler — in the mind — to suffer 
The slings — and arrows — of — 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 11 

Oh ! Oh ! these women ! I will e'en step over to the 
parson's and have a cup of sack with His Reverence, 
for methinks Master Hamlet hath forgot that which 
was just now on his lips to speak." 

So I shall have to put off making my friends 
acquainted with the other boarders, some of whom 
seem to me worth studying and describing. I have 
something else of a graver character for my readers. 
I am talking, you know, as a poet ; I do not say I de- 
serve the name, but I have taken it, and if you con- 
sider me at all it must be in that aspect. You will, 
therefore, perhaps, be willing to run your eyes over a 
few pages which I read, of course by request, to a 
select party of the boarders. 



THE GAMBKEL-ROOFED HOUSE AND ITS OUT- 
LOOK. 

A PANORAMA, WITH SIDE-SHOWS. 

My birthplace, the home of my childhood and 
earlier and later boyhood, has within a few months 
passed out of the ownership of my family into the 
hands of that venerable Alma Mater who seems to 
have renewed her youth, and has certainly repainted 
her dormitories. In truth, when I last revisited that 
familiar scene and looked upon the flammantia mos7iia 
of the old halls, " Massachusetts " with the dummy 
clock-dial, '' Harvard " with the garrulous belfry, little 



12 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

" Holden " with the sculptured unpunishable cherub 
over its portal, and the rest of my early brick-and- 
mortar acquaintances, I could not help saying to my- 
self that I had lived to see the peaceable establishment 
of the Red Republic of Letters. 

Many of the things I shall put down I have no 
doubt told before in a fragmentary way, how many I 
cannot be quite sure, as I do not very often read my 
own prose works. But when a man dies a great deal 
is said of him which has often been said in other 
forms, and now this dear old house is dead to me in 
one sense, and I want to gather up my recollections 
and wind a string of narrative round them, tying them 
up like a nosegay for the last tribute : the same blos- 
soms in it I have often laid on its threshold while it 
was still living for me. 

We Americans are all cuckoos, — we make our 
homes in the nests of other birds. I have read some- 
where that the lineal descendants of the man who 
carted off the body of William Rufus, with Walter 
Tyrrel's arrow sticking in it, have driven a cart (not 
absolutely the same one, I suppose) in the New Forest, 
from that day to this. I don't quite understand Mr. 
Ruskin's saying (if he said it) that he could n't get 
along in a country where there were no castles, but I 
do think we lose a great deal in living where there are 
so few permanent homes. You will see how much I 
parted with which was not reckoned in the price paid 
for the old homestead. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 13 

I shall say many things which an uncharitable 
reader might find fault with as personal. I should 
not dare to call myself a poet if I did not ; for if there 
is anything that gives one a title to that name, it is 
that his inner nature is naked and is not ashamed. 
But there are many such things I shall put m 
words, not because they are personal, but because they 
are human, and are born of just such experiences as 
those who hear or read what I say are like to have had 
in greater or less measure. I find myself so much like 
other people that I often wonder at the coincidence. 
It was only the other day that I sent out a copy of 
verses about my great-grandmother's picture, and I 
was surprised to find how many other people had por- 
traits of their great-grandmothers or other progenitors, 
about which they felt as I did about mine, and for 
whom I had spoken, thinking I was speaking for my- 
self only. And so I am not afraid to talk very freely 
with you, my precious reader or listener. You too. 
Beloved, were born somewhere and remember your 
birthplace or your early home ; for you some house is 
haunted by recollections ; to some roof you have bid 
farewell. Your hand is upon mine, then, as I guide 
my pen. Your heart frames the responses to the lit- 
any of my remembrance. For myself it is a tribute of 
affection I am rendering, and I should put it on record 
for my own satisfaction, were there none to read or 
to listen. 

1 hope you will not say that I have built a pillared 



14 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

portico of introduction to a humble structure of narrar- 
tive. For when you look at the old gambrel-roofed 
house, you will see an unpretending mansion, such as 
very possibly you were born in yourself, or at any rate 
such a place of residence as your minister or some of 
your well-to-do country cousins find good enough, but 
not at all too grand for them. We have stately old 
Colonial palaces in our ancient village, now a city, and 
a thriving one, — square-fronted edifices that stand 
back from the vulgar highway, with folded arms, as it 
were ; social fortresses of the time when the twilight 
lustre of the throne reached as far as our half-cleared 
settlement, with a glacis before them in the shape of a 
long broad gravel-walk, so that in King George's time 
they looked as formidably to any but the silk-stocking 
gentry as Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein to a visitor with- 
out the password. We forget all this in the kindly 
welcome they give us to-day ; for some of them are 
still standing and doubly famous, as we all know. 
But the gambrel-roofed house, though stately enough 
for college dignitaries and scholarly clergymen, was 
not one of those old Tory, Episcopal-church-goer's 
strongholds. One of its doors opens directly upon the 
green, always called the Common ; the other, facing 
the south, a few steps from it, over a paved foot-walk, 
on the other side of which is the miniature front yard, 
bordered with lilacs and syringas. The honest man- 
sion makes no pretensions. Accessible, companionable, 
holding its hand out to all, comfortable, respectable, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 15 

and even in its way dignified, but not imposing, not a 
house for his Majesty's Counsellor, or the Right Rev- 
erend successor of Him who had not where to lay his 
head, for something like a hundred and fifty years it 
has stood in its lot, and seen the generations of men 
come and go like the leaves of the forest. I passed 
some pleasant hours, a few years since, in the Registry 
of Deeds and the Town Records, looking up the his- 
tory of the old house. How those dear friends of 
mine, the antiquarians, for whose grave councils I 
compose my features on the too rare Thursdays when 
I am at liberty to meet them, in whose human herba- 
rium the leaves and blossoms of past generations are 
so carefully spread out and pressed and laid away, 
would listen to an expansion of the following brief 
details into an Historical Memoir ! 

The estate was the third lot of the eighth " Squad- 
ron " (whatever that might be), and in the year 1707 
was allotted in the distribution of undivided lands to 
" Mr. ffox," the Reverend Jabez Fox, of Woburn, it 
may be supposed, as it passed from his heirs to tJie 
first Jonathan Hastings ; from him to his son, the 
long-remembered College Steward ; from him in the 
year 1792 to the Reverend Eliphalet Pearson, Pro- 
fessor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages in 
Harvard College, whose large personality swam into 
my ken when I was looking forward to my teens ; 
from him to the progenitors of my unborn self. 

I wonder if there are any such beings nowadays as 



16 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the great Eliphalet, with his large features and conver- 
sational basso profunda, seemed to me. His very 
name had something elephantine about it, and it 
seemed to me that the house shook from cellar to 
garret at his footfall. Some have pretended that he 
had Olympian aspirations, and wanted to sit in the 
seat of Jove and bear the academic thunderbolt and 
the segis inscribed Christo et Ecclesim, It is a com- 
mon weakness enough to wish to find one's self in an 
empty saddle ; Cotton Mather was miserable all his 
days, I am afraid, after that entry in his Diary : " This 
Day Dr. Sewall was chosen President, for his Piety,'' 

There is no doubt that the men of the older genera^ 
tion look bigger and more formidable to the boys 
whose eyes are turned up at their venerable counte- 
nances than the race which succeeds them, to the same 
boys grown older. Everything is twice as large, meas- 
ured on a three-year-old's three-foot scale as on a 
thirty-year-old's six-foot scale ; but age magnifies and 
aggravates persons out of due proportion. Old people 
are a kind of monsters to little folks ; mild manifesta- 
tions of the terrible, it may be, but still, with their 
white locks and ridged and grooved features, which 
those horrid little eyes exhaust of their details, like so 
many microscopes, not exactly what human beings 
ought to be. The middle-aged and young men have 
left comparatively faint impressions in my memory, but 
how grandly the procession of the old clergymen who 
filled our pulpit from time to time, and passed the 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 17 

day under our roof, marches before my closed eyes I 
At their head the most venerable David Osgood, the 
majestic minister of Medford, with massive front and 
shaggy overshadowing eyebrows ; following in the 
train, mild-eyed John I'oster of Brighton, with the 
lambent aurora of a smile about his pleasant mouth, 
which not even the ^^ Sabbath " could subdue to the 
true Levitical aspect ; and bulky Charles Stearns of 
Lincoln, author of " The Ladies' Philosophy of Love. 
A Poem. 1797." (how I stared at him ! he was the 
first living person ever pointed out to me as a poet) ; 
and Thaddeus Mason Harris of Dorchester (the same 
who, a poor youth, trudging along, staff in hand, 
being then in a stress of sore need, found all at once 
that somewhat was adhering to the end of his stick, 
which somewhat proved to be a gold ring of price, 
bearing the words, " God speed thee, Friend ! "), 
already in decadence as I remember him, with head 
slanting forward and downward as if looking for a 
place to rest in ftffcer his learned labors ; and that 
other Thaddeus, the old man of West Cambridge, 
who-outwatched the rest so long after they had gone 
to sleep in their own churchyards, that it almost 
seemed as if he meant to sit up until the morning of 
the resurrection ; and bringing up the rear, attenuated 
but vivacious little Jonathan Homer of ISTewton, who 
was, to look upon, a kind of expurgated, reduced and 
Americanized copy of Voltaire, but very unlike him in 
wickedness or wit. The good-humored junior mem- 



18 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ber of our family always loved to make him happy 
by setting him chirruping about Miles Coverdale s Ver- 
sion, and the Bishop's Bible, and how he wrote to 
his friend Sir Isaac (Coffin) about something or other, 
and how Sir Isaac wrote back that he was very much 
pleased with the contents of his letter, and so on about 
Sir Isaac, ad libitum, — for the admiral was his old 
friend, and he was proud of him. The kindly little 
old gentleman was a collector of Bibles, and made 
himself believe he thought he should publish a learned 
Commentary some day or other ; but his friends looked 
for it only in the Greek Calends, — say on the 31st 
of April, when that should come round, if you would 
modernize the phrase. I recall also one or two excep- 
tional and infrequent visitors with perfect distinctness : 
cheerful Elijah Kellogg, a lively missionary from the 
region of the Quoddy Indians, with much hopeful talk 
about Sock Bason and his tribe ; also poor old Poor- 
house-Parson Isaac Smith, his head going like a China 
mandarin, as he discussed the possibilities of the 
escape of that distinguished captive whom he spoke 
of under the name, if I can reproduce phonetically its 
vibrating nasalities, of ^' General Mmbongaparty," — a 
name suggestive to my young imagination of a danger- 
ous, loose-jointed skeleton, threatening us all like the 
armed figure of Death in my little New England 
Primer. 

I have mentioned only the names of those whose 
images come up pleasantly before me, and I do not 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 19 

mean to say anything which any descendant might not 
read smilingly. But there were some of the black- 
coated gentry whose aspect was not so agreeable to 
me. It is very curious to me to look back on my 
early likes and dislikes, and see how as a child I was 
attracted or repelled by such and such ministers, a 
good deal, as I found out long afterwards, according 
to their theological beliefs. On the whole, I think 
the old-fashioned New England divine softening down 
into Arminianism was about as agreeable as any of 
them. And here I may remark, that a mellowing 
rigorist is alwaj^s a much pleasanter object to contem- 
plate than a tightening liberal, as a cold day warming 
up to 32'' Fahrenheit is much more agreeable than a 
warm one chilling down to the same temperature. 
The least pleasing change is that kind of mental 
hemiplegia which now and then attacks the rational 
side of a man at about the same period of life when 
one side of the body is liable to be palsied, and in fact 
is, very probably, the same thing as palsy, in another 
form. The worst of it is that the subjects of it never 
seem to suspect that they are intellectual invalids, 
stammerers and cripples at best, but are all the time 
hitting out at their old friends with the well arm, and 
calling them hard names out of their twisted mouths. 
It was a real delight to have one of those good, 
hearty, happy, benignant old clergymen pass the 
Sunday with us, and I can remember some whose 
advent made the day feel almost like " Thanksgiving." 



20 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

But now and then would come along a clerical visitor 
with a sad face and a wailing voice, which sounded 
exactly as if somebody must be lying dead up stairs, 
who took no interest in us children, except a painful 
one, as being in a bad way with our cheery looks, and 
did more to unchristianize us with his woebegone 
ways than all his sermons were like to accomplish in 
the other direction. I remember one in particular, 
who twitted me so with my blessings as a Christian 
child, and whined so to me about the naked black 
children who, like the " Little Vulgar Boy," " had n't 
got no supper and had n't got no ma," and had n't got 
no Catechism, (how I wished for the moment I was a 
little black boy !) that he did more in that one day to 
make me a heathen than he had ever done in a month 
to make a Christian out of an infant Hottentot. 
What a debt we owe to our friends of the left centre, 
the Brooklyn and the Park Street and the Summer 
Street ministers ; good, wholesome, sound-bodied, 
sane-minded, cheerful-spirited men, who have taken 
the place of those wailing poitrinaires with the ban- 
danna handkerchiefs round their meagre throats and 
a funeral service in their forlorn physiognomies! I 
might have been a minister myself, for aught I know, 
if this clergyman had not looked and talked so like an 
undertaker. 

All this belongs to one of the side-shows, to which 
I promised those who would take tickets to the main 
exhibition should have entrance gratis. If I were 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21 

wi'iting a poem you would expect, as a matter of 
course, that there would be a digression now and 
then. 

To come back to the old house and its former 
tenant, the Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental 
languages. Fifteen years he lived with his family 
under its roof. I never found the slightest trace of 
him until a few years ago, when I cleaned and 
brightened with pious hands the brass lock of " the 
study," which had for many years been covered with a 
thick coat of paint. On that I found scratched, as 
with a nail or fork, the following inscription : — 

E PE 

Only that and nothing more, but the story told itself. 
Master Edward Pearson, then about as high as the 
lock, was disposed to immortalize himself in monu- 
mental brass, and had got so far towards it, when a 
sudden interruption, probably a smart box on the ear, 
cheated him of his fame, except so far as this poor 
record may rescue it. Dead long ago. I remember 
him well, a grown man, as a visitor at a later period ; 
and, for some reason, I recall him in the attitude 
of the Colossus of Rhodes, standing full before a 
generous wood-fire, not facing it, but quite the con- 
trary, a perfect picture of the content afforded by a 
blazing hearth contemplated from that point of view, 
and, as the heat stole through his person and kindled 
his emphatic features, seeming to me a pattern of 



22 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

manly beauty. What a statue gallery of posturing 
friends we all have in our memory ! The old Pro- 
fessor himself sometimes visited the house after it 
had changed hands. Of course, my recollections are 
not to be wholly trusted, but I always think I see his 
likeness in a profile face to be found among the 
Illustrations of Rees's Cyclopaedia. (See Plates, Vol. 
IV., Plate 2, Painting, Diversities of the Human 
Face, Fig. 4.) 

And now let us return to our chief picture. In 
the days of my earliest remembrance, a row of tall 
Lombardy poplars mounted guard on the western side 
of the old mansion. Whether, like the cypress, these 
trees suggest the idea of the funeral torch or the 
monumental spire, whether their tremulous leaves 
make us afraid by sympathy with their nervous thrills^ 
whether the faint balsamic smeU of their leaves and 
their closely swathed limbs have in them vague hints 
of dead Pharaohs stiffened in their cerements, I wiU 
not guess ; but they always seemed to me to give an 
air of sepulchral sadness to the house before which 
they stood sentries. Not so with the row of elms 
which you may see leading up towards the western 
entrance. I think the patriarch of them all went over 
in the great gale of 1815 ; I know I used to shake 
the youngest of them with my hands, stout as it is 
now, with a trunk that would defy the bully of 
Crotona, or the strong man whose liaison with the 
Lady Delilah proved so disastrous. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 

The College plain would be nothing without its 
elms. As the long hair of a woman is a glory to her, 
so are these green tresses that bank themselves against 
the sky in thick clustered masses the ornament and 
the pride of the classic green. You know the 
^' Washington elm," or if you do not, you had better 
rekindle your patriotism by reading the inscription, 
which tells you that under its shadow the great 
leader first drew his sword at the head of an American 
army. In a line with that you may see two others : the 
coral fan, as I always called it from its resemblance in 
form to that beautiful marine growth, and a third a 
little farther along. I have heard it said that all three 
were planted at the same time, and that the difference 
of their growth is due to the slope of the ground, — 
the Washington elm being lower than either of the 
others. There is a row of elms just in front of the 
old house on the south. When I was a child the one 
at the southwest corner was struck by lightning, and 
one of its limbs and a long ribbon of bark torn away. 
The tree never fully recovered its symmetry and vigor, 
and forty years and more afterwards a second thunder- 
bolt crashed upon it and set its heart on fire, like 
those of the lost souls in the Hall of Eblis. Heaven 
had twice blasted it, and the axe finished what the 
lightning had begun. 

The soil of the University town is divided into 
patches of sandy and of clayey ground. The Com- 
mon and the College green, near which the old house 



24 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

stands, are on one of the sandy patches. Four curses 
are the local inheritance : droughts, dust, mud, and 
canker-worms. I cannot but think that all the char- 
acters of a region help to modify the children born in 
it. I am fond of making apologies for human nature, 
and I think I could find an excuse for myself if I, too, 
were dry and barren and muddy-witted and " can- 
tankerous," — disposed to get my back up, like those 
other natives of the soil. 

I know this, that the way Mother Earth treats a 
boy shapes out a kind of natural theology for him. 
I fell into Manichean ways of thinking from the teach- 
ing of my garden experiences. Like other boys in 
the country, I had my patch of ground, to which, in 
the spring-time, I intrusted the seeds furnished me, 
with a confident trust in their resurrection and glorifi- 
cation in the better world of summer. But I soon 
found that my lines had fallen in a place where a 
vegetable growth had to run the gauntlet of as many 
foes and trials as a Christian pilgrim. Flowers would 
not blow ; daffbdils perished like criminals in their 
condemned caps, without their petals ever seeing day- 
light ; roses were disfigured with monstrous protru- 
sions through their very centres, — something that 
looked like a second bud pushing through the middle 
of the corolla ; lettuces and cabbages would not head ; 
radishes knotted themselves until they looked like 
centenarians' fingers ; and on every stem, on every 
leaf, and both sides of it, and at the root of every. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 25 

thing that grew, was a professional specialist in the 
shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, 
whose business it was to devour that particular part, 
and help murder the whole attempt at vegetation. 
Such experiences must influence a child born to them. 
A sandy soil, where nothing flourishes but weeds and 
evil beasts of small dimensions, must breed different 
qualities in its human ofispring from one of those fat 
and fertile spots which the wit whom I have once 
before quoted described so happily that, if I quoted 
the passage, its brilliancy would spoil one of my pages, 
as a diamond breastpin sometimes kills the social 
effect of the wearer, who might have passed for a 
gentleman without it. Your arid patch of earth 
should seem to be the natural birthplace of the leaner 
virtues and the feebler vices, — of temperance and 
the domestic proprieties on the one hand, with a 
tendency to light weights in groceries and provisions, 
and to clandestine abstraction from the person on the 
other, as opposed to the free hospitality, the broadly 
planned burglaries, and the largely conceived hom- 
icides of our rich Western alluvial regions. Yet 
Nature is never wholly unkind. Economical as she 
was in my unparadised Eden, hard as it was to make 
some of my floral houris unveil, still the damask roses 
sweetened the June breezes, the bladed and plumed 
flower-de-luces unfolded their close-wrapped cones, 
and larkspurs and lupins, lady's delights, — plebeian 
manifestations of the pansy, — self-sowing marigolds. 



26 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

hollyhocks, the forest flowers of two seasons, and the 
perennial lilacs and syringas, — all whispered to the 
winds blowing over them that some caressing presence 
was around me. 

Beyond the garden was " the field/' a vast domain 
of four acres or thereabout, by the measurement of 
after years, bordered to the north by a fathomless 
chasm, — the ditch the base-ball players of the present 
era jump over ; on the east by unexplored territory ; 
on the south by a barren enclosure, where the red 
sorrel proclaimed liberty and equality under its 
drapeau rmige, and succeeded in establishing a vegeta- 
ble commune where all were alike, poor, mean, sour, 
and uninteresting ; and on the west by the Common, 
not then disgraced by jealous enclosures, which make 
it look like a cattle-market. Beyond, as I looked 
round, were the Colleges, the meeting-house, the little 
square market-house, long vanished ; the burial- 
ground where the dead Presidents stretched their 
weary bones under epitaphs stretched out at as full 
length as their subjects ; the pretty church where the 
gouty Tories used to kneel on their hassocks ; the 
district school-house, and hard by it Ma'am Hancock's 
cottage, never so called in those days, but rather 
" tenfooter " ; then houses scattered near and far, open 
spaces, the shadowy elms, round hilltops in the dis^ 
tance, and over all the great bowl of the sky. Mind 
you, this was the world, as I first knew it ; terra 
veteribiis cognita, as Mr. Arrowsmith would have 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 

called it, if he had mapped the universe of my in- 
fancy. 

But I am forgetting the old house again in the 
landscape. The worst of a modem stylish mansion is, 
that it has no place for ghosts. I watched one build- 
ing not long since. It had no proper garret, to begin 
with, only a sealed interval between the roof and 
attics, where a spirit could not be accommodated, 
unless it were flattened out like Ravel, Brother, after 
the millstone had fallen on him. There was not a 
nook or a corner in the whole house fit to lodge any 
respectable ghost, for every part was as open to obser- 
vation as a literary man's character and condition, his 
figure and estate, his coat and his countenance, are to 
his (or her) Bohemian Majesty on a tour of inspection 
through his (or her) subjects' keyholes. 

Now the old house had wainscots, behind which 
the mice were always scampering and squeaking and 
rattling down the plaster, and enacting family scenes 
and parlor theatricals. It had a cellar where the cold 
slug clung to the walls, and the misanthropic spider 
withdrew from the garish day; where the green 
mould loved to grow, and the long white potato- 
shoots went feeling along the floor, if haply the} 
might flnd the daylight; it had great brick pillars, 
always in a cold sweat with holding up the burden 
they had been aching under day and night for a cen- 
tury and more ; it had sepulchral arches closed by 
rough doors that hung on hinges rotten with rust. 



28 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

behind which doors, if there was not a heap of bones 
connected with a mysterious disappearance of long 
ago, there well might have been, for it was just the 
place to look for them. It had a garret, very nearly 
such a one as it seems to me one of us has described 
in one of his books ; but let us look at this one as I 
can reproduce it from memory. It has a flooring of 
laths with ridges of mortar squeezed up between 
them, which if you tread on you will go to — the 
Lord have mercy on you ! where will you go to ? — 
the same being crossed by narrow bridges of boards, 
on which you may put your feet, but with fear and 
trembling. Above you and around you are beams and 
joists, on some of which you may see, when the light 
is let in, the marks of the conchoidal clippings of the 
broadaxe, showing the rude way in which the timber 
was shaped as it came, full of sap, from the neighbor- 
ing forest. It is a realm of darkness and thick dust, 
and shroud-like cobwebs and dead things they wrap 
in their gray folds. For a garret is like a sea-shore, 
where wrecks are thrown up and slowly go to pieces. 
There is the cradle which the old man you just 
remember was rocked in ; there is the ruin of the bed- 
stead he died on ; that ugly slanting contrivance used 
to be put under his pillow in the days when his breath 
came hard ; there is his old chair with both arms 
gone, symbol of the desolate time when he had noth- 
ing earthly left to lean on ; there is the large wooden 
veel which the blear-eyed old deacon sent the minis- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 

ter's lady, who thanked him graciously, and twirled it 
smilingly, and in fitting season bowed it out decently 
to the limbo of troublesome conveniences. And there 
are old leather portmanteaus, like stranded porpoises, 
their mouths gaping in gaunt hunger for the food with 
which they used to be gorged to bulging repletion ; 
and old brass andirons, waiting until time shall 
revenge them on their paltry substitutes, and they 
shall have their own again, and bring with them the 
fore-stick and the back-log of ancient days ; and the 
empty churn, with its idle dasher, which the Nancys 
and Phcebes, who have left their comfortable places to 
the Bridgets and ISTorahs, used to handle to good 
purpose; and the brown, shaky old spinning-wheel, 
which was running, it may be, in the days when they 
were hanging the Salem witches. 

Under the dark and haunted garret were attic 
«hamberc which themselves had histories. On a pane 
in the northeastern chamber may be read these 
names : " John Tracy," " Robert Roberts," " Thomas 
Prince " ; " Stultus " another hand had added. When 
I found these names a few years ago (wrong side up, 
for the Avindow had been reversed), I looked at once 
in the Triennial to find them, for the epithet showed 
that they were probably students. I found them all 
under the years 1771 and 1773. Does it please their 
thin ghosts thus to be dragged to the light of day ? 
Has " Stultus " forgiven the indignity of being thus 
characterized ? 



30 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The southeast chamber was the Library Hospital. 
Every scholar should have a book infirmary attached 
to his library. There should find a peaceable refuge 
the many books, invalids from their birth, which are 
sent " with the best regards of the Author " ; the re- 
spected, but unpresentable cripples which have lost a 
cover ; the odd volumes of honored sets which go 
mourning all their days for their lost brother ; the 
school-books which have been so often the subjects of 
assault and battery, that they look as if the police 
court must know them by heart ; these and still more 
the pictured story-books, beginning with Mother 
Goose (which a dear old friend of mine has just been 
amusing his philosophic leisure with turning most in- 
geniously and happily into the tongues of Virgil and 
Homer), will be precious mementos by and by, when 
children and grandchildren come along. What would 
I not give for that dear little paper-bound quarto, in 
large and most legible type, on certain pages of which 
the tender hand that was the shield of my infancy had 
crossed out with deep black marks something awful, 
probably about Bears, such as once tare two-and- 
forty of us little folks for making faces, and the very 
name of which made us hide our heads under the bed- 
clothes. 

I made strange acquaintances in that book infirmary 
up in the southwest attic. The " Negro Plot " at 
New York helped to implant a feeling in me which it 
took Mr. Garrison a good many years to root out. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 

" Thinks I to Myself," an old novel, which has been 
attributed to a famous statesman, introduced me to a 
world of fiction which was not represented on the 
shelves of the library proper, unless perhaps by 
Coelebs in Search of a Wife, or allegories of the bitter 
tonic class, as the young doctor that sits on the other 
side of the table would probably call them. I always, 
from an early age, had a keen eye for a story with a 
moral sticking out of it, and gave it a wide berth, 
though in my later years I have myself written a 
couple of "medicated novels," as one of my dearest 
and pleasantest old friends wickedly called them, 
when somebody asked her if she had read the last of 
my printed performances. I forgave the satire for the 
charming esprit of the epithet. Besides the works I 
have mentioned, there was an old, old Latin alchemy 
book, with the manuscript annotations of some 
ancient Rosicrucian, in the pages of which I had a 
vague notion that I might find the mighty secret of 
the Lapis Philosophorum, otherwise called Chaos, the 
Dragon, the Green Lion, the Quinta Essentia, the 
Soap of Sages, the Vinegar of Philosophers, the Dew 
of Heavenly Grace, the Egg, the Old Man, the Sun, 
the Moon, and by all manner of odd aliases, as I am 
assured by the plethoric little book before me, in 
parchment covers browned like a meerschaum with 
the smoke of furnaces and the thumbing of dead 
gold-seekers, and the fingering of bony-handed book- 
misers, and the long intervals of dusty slumber on the 



32 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

shelves of the bouquiniste ; for next year it will be 
three centuries old, and it had already seen nine 
generations of men when I caught its eye (Alchemice 
Doctrina) and recognized it at pistol-shot distance as 
a prize, among the breviaries and Heures and trump- 
ery volumes of the old open-air dealer who exposed 
his treasures under the shadow of St. Sulpice. I 
have never lost my taste for alchemy since I first got 
hold of the Palladium Spagyricum of Peter John 
Faber, and sought — in vain, it is true — through its 
pages for a clear, intelligible, and practical statement 
of how I could turn my lead sinkers and the weights 
of the tall kitchen clock into good yellow gold, 
specific gravity 19.2, and exchangeable for whatever I 
then wanted, and for many more things than I was 
then aware of. One of the greatest pleasures of 
childhood is found in the mysteries which it hides 
from the scepticism of the elders, and works up into 
small mythologies of its own. I have seen all this 
played over again in adult life, — the same delightful 
bewilderment of semi-emotional belief in listening to 
the gaseous promises of this or that fantastic system, 
that I found in the pleasing mirages conjured up for 
me by the ragged old volume I used to pore over in 
the southeast attic-chamber. 

The rooms of the second story, the chambers of 
birth and death, are sacred to silent memories. 

Let us go down to the ground-floor. I should 
have begun with this, but that the historical reminis- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 33 

cences of the old house have been recently told in a 
most interesting memoir by a distinguished student of 
our local history. I retain my doubts about those 
"dents" on the floor of the right-hand room, "the 
study " of successive occupants, said to have been 
made by the butts of the Continental militia's fire- 
locks, but this was the cause the story told me in 
childhood laid them to. That military consultations 
were held in that room when the house was General 
Ward's headquarters, that the Provincial generals and 
colonels and other men of war there planned the 
movement which ended in the fortifying of Bunker's 
Hill, that Warren slept in the house the night before 
the battle, that President Langdon went forth from 
the western door and prayed for God's blessing on the 
men just setting forth on their bloody expedition, — 
all these things have been told, and perhaps none of 
them need be doubted. 

But now for fifty years and more that room has 
been a meeting-ground for the platoons and companies 
which range themselves at the scholar's word of com- 
mand. Pleasant it is to think that the retreating host 
of books is to give place to a still larger army of 
volumes, which have seen service under the eye of a 
great commander. For here the noble collection of 
him so freshly remembered as our silver-tongued 
orator, our erudite scholar, our honored College 
President, our accomplished statesman, our courtly 

ambassador, are to be reverently gathered by the heir 
2* c 



34 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

of his name, himself not unworthy to be surrounded 
by that august assembly of the wise of all ages and of 
various lands and languages. 

Could such a many-chambered edifice have stood a 
century and a half and not have had its passages of 
romance to bequeath their lingering legends to the 
after-time? There are other names on some of the 
small window-panes, which must have had young 
flesh-and-blood owners, and there is one of early date 
which elderly persons have whispered was borne by a 
fair woman, whose graces made the house beautiful in 
the eyes of the youth of that time. One especially — 
you mil find the name of Fortescue Vernon, of the 
class of 1780, in the Triennial Catalogue — was a 
favored visitor to the old mansion ; but he went over 
seas, I think they told me, and died still young, and 
the name of the maiden which is scratched on the 
window-pane was never changed. I am telling the 
story honestly, as I remember it, but I may have 
colored it unconsciously, and the legendary pane may 
be broken before this for aught I know. At least, I 
have named no names except the beautiful one of the 
supposed hero of the romantic story. 

It was a great happiness to have been born in an 
old house haunted by such recollections, with harm- 
less ghosts walking its corridors, with fields of waving 
grass and trees and singing birds, and that vast 
territory of four or five acres around it to give a child 
the sense that he was bom to a noble principality. It 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 35 

has been a great pleasure to retain a certain hold 
upon it for so many years ; and since in the natural 
course of things it must at length pass into other 
hands, it is a gratification to see the old place making 
itself tidy for a new tenant, like some venerable dame 
who is getting ready to entertain a neighbor of con- 
dition. JSTot long since a new cap of shingles adorned 
this ancient mother among the village — now city — 
mansions. She has dressed herself in brighter colors 
than she has hitherto worn, so they tell me, within 
the last few days. She has modernized her aspects in 
several ways ; she has rubbed bright the glasses 
through which she looks at the Common and the 
Colleges ; and as the sunsets shine upon her through 
the flickering leaves or the wiry spray of the elms I 
remember from my childhood, they will glorify her 
into the aspect she wore when President Holyoke, 
father of our long since dead centenarian, looked upon 
her in her youthful comeliness. 

The quiet corner formed by this and the neighbor- 
ing residences has changed less than any place I can 
remember. Our kindly, polite, shrewd, and humorous 
old neighbor, who in former days has served the town 
as constable and auctioneer, and who bids fair to 
become the oldest inhabitant of the city, was there 
when I was bom, and is living there to-day. By and 
by the stony foot of the great University will plant 
itself on this whole territory, and the private recollec- 
tions which clung so tenaciously and fondly to the 



36 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

place and its habitations will have died with those 
who cherished them. 

Shall they ever live again in the memory of those 
who loved them here below ? What is this life with, 
out the poor accidents which made it our own, and by 
which we identify ourselves ? Ah me ! I might like 
to be a winged chorister, but still it seems to me I 
should hardly be quite happy if I could not recall at 
will the Old House with the Long Entry, and the 
White Chamber (where I wrote the first verses that 
made me known, with a pencil, stans pede in uno, 
pretty nearly), and the Little Parlor, and the Study, 
and the old books in uniforms as varied as those of 
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company used 
to be, if my memory serves me right, and the front 
yard with the stars of Bethlehem growing, flowerless, 
among the grass, and the dear faces to be seen no 
more there or anywhere on this earthly place of fare- 
wells. 

I have told my story. I do not know what special 
gifts have been granted or denied me ; but this I 
know, that I am like so many others of my fellow- 
creatures, that when I smile, I feel as if they must ; 
when I cry, I think their eyes fill ; and it always 
seems to me that when I am most truly myself I come 
nearest to them and am surest of being listened to 
by the brothers and sisters of the larger family into 
which I was born so long ago. I have often feared 
they might be tired of me and what I tell them. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 37 

But then, perhaps, would come a letter from some 
quiet body in some out-of-the-way place, which 
showed me that I had said something which another 
had often felt but never said, or told the secret of 
another's heart in unburdening my own. Such 
evidences that one is in the highway of human experi- 
ence and feeling lighten the footsteps wonderfully. 
So it is that one is encouraged to go on writing as 
long as the world has anything that interests him, for 
he never knows how many of his fellow-beings he may 
please or profit, and in how many places his name will 
be spoken as that of a friend. 

In the mood suggested by my story I have ventured 
on the poem that follows. Most people love this 
world more than they are willing to confess, and it is 
hard to conceive ourselves weaned from it so as to 
feel no emotion at the thought of its most sacred 
recollections — even after a sojourn of years, as we 
should count the lapse of earthly time — in the realm 
where, sooner or later, all tears shall be wiped away. 
I hope, therefore, the title of my lines will not frighten 
those who are little accustomed to think of men and 
women as human beings in any state but the present. 



HOMESICK IN HEAVEN. 

THE DIVINE VOICE. 

Go seek tliine earth-born sisters, — thus the Voice 
That all obey, — the sad and silent three; 

These only, while the hosts of heaven rejoice, 
Smile never: ask them what their sorrows be: 



38 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

And when the secret of their griefs they tell, 
Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes; 

Say what thou wast on earth ; thou knowest well ; 
So shall they cease from unavailing sighs. 

THE ANGEL. 

— Why thus, apart, — the swift- winged herald spake, — ' 
Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres 

While the trisagion's blending chords awake 
In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs ? 

THE FIRST SPIRIT. 

— Chide not thy sisters, — thus the answer came; — 
Children of earth, our half -weaned nature clings 

To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name 
Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings ; 

For there we loved, and where we love is home, 
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts, 

Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome : — 
The chain may lengthen, but it never parts ! 

Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by, 
And then we softly whisper, — can it he ? 

And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try 
To hear the music of its murmuring sea ; 

To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green, 
Or breathe some wild- wood fragrance, wafted through 

The opening gates of pearl, that fold between 
The blinding splendors and the changeless blue. 

THE ANGEL. 

— Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf 

Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-fruited tree. 
Would soothe such anguish, — deeper stabbing grief 
Has pierced thy throbbing heart — 

THE FIRST SPIRIT. 

• — Ah. woe is me I 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 39 

I from my clinging babe was rudely torn ; 

His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed ; 
Can I forget him in my life new born ? 

O that my darling lay upon my breast ! 

THE ANGEL. 

— And tbou ? — 

THE SECOND SPIRIT. 

I was a fair and youthful bride, 
The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek, 
He whom I worshipped, ever at my side, — 
Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek. 

Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine ; 

Ah ! not in these the wished-for look I read ; 
Still for that one dear human smile I pine ; 

Thou and none other ! — is the lover's creed. 

THE ANGEL. 

— And whence tliy sadness in a world of bliss 
Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear? 

Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss 
Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere ? 

THE THIRD SPIRIT. 

— Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire ; 
When the swift message set my spirit free, 

Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire ; 
My friends were many, he had none save me. 

I left him, orphaned, in the starless night; 

Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn! 
1 wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white, 

Yet still I hear him moaning. She is gone ! 

THE ANGEL. 

— Ye know me not, sweet sisters ? — All in vain 
Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore; 

The flower once opened may not bud again. 
The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more. 



40 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Child, lover, sire, — yea, all things loved below, — 
Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold, — 

Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow, 
When the bright curtain of the day is rolled. 

/ was the babe that slumbered on thy breast. 

— And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride. 
— Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed, 

That faithful hand, my faltering footstep's guide I 

Each changing form, frail vesture of decay, 
The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, 

Stained with the travel of the weary day. 

And shamed with rents from every wayside thorn. 

To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace, — 

To come with love's warm kisses back to thee, — 

To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face, 
Not Heaven itself could grant ; this may not be 1 

Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth 
The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long, 

Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth, 
And sorrow's discords sweeten into song! 



II. 



I AM going to take it for granted now and hence- 
forth, in my report of what was said and what was to 
be seen at our table, that I have secured one good, 
faithful, loving reader, who never finds fault, who 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 41 

never gets sleepy over my pages, whom no critic can 
bully out of a liking for me, and to whom I am 
always safe in addressing myself. My one elect may 
be man or woman, old or young, gentle or simple, 
living in the next block or on a slope of Nevada, 
my fellow-countryman or an alien ; but one such 
reader I shall assume to exist and have always in my 
thought when I am writing. 

A writer is so like a lover ! And a talk with the 
right listener is so like an arm-in-arm walk in the 
moonlight with the soft heartbeat just felt through 
the folds of muslin and broadcloth ! But it takes 
very little to spoil everything for writer, talker, lover. 
There are a great many cruel things besides poverty 
that freeze the genial current of the soul, as the poet 
of the Elegy calls it. Fire can stand any wind, but 
flame is easily blown out, and then come smouldering 
and smoke, and profitless, slow combustion without 
the cheerful blaze which sheds light all round it. The 
One Reader's hand may shelter the flame ; the one 
blessed ministering spirit with the vessel of oil may 
keep it bright in spite of the stream of cold water on 
the other side doing its best to put it out. 

I suppose, if any writer, of any distinguishable indi- 
viduality, could look into the hearts of all his readers, 
he might very probably find one in his parish of a 
thousand or a million who honestly preferred him to 
any other of his kind. I have no doubt we have each 
one of us, somewhere, our exact fac-simile, so like us 



42 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

in all things except the accidents of condition, that 
we should love each other like a pair of twins, if our 
natures could once fairly meet. I know I have my 
counterpart in some State of this Union. I feel 
sure that there is an Englishman somewhere precisely 
like myself. (I hope he does not drop his ^s, for it 
does not seem to me possible that the Royal Dane 
could have remained faithful to his love for Ophelia, 
if she had addressed him as 'Amlet.) There is also a 
certain Monsieur, to me at this moment unknown, and 
likewise a Herr Von Something, each of whom is 
essentially my double. An Arab is at this moment 
eating dates, a Mandarin is just sipping his tea, and a 
South-Sea-Islander (with undeveloped possibilities) 
drinking the milk of a cocoa-nut, each one of whom, if 
he had been born in the gambrel-roofed house, and 
cultivated my little sand-patch, and grown up in " the 
Study " from the height of Walton's Polyglot Bible to 
that of the shelf which held the Elzevir Tacitus and 
Casaubon's Polybius, with all the complex influences 
about him that surrounded me, would have been so 
nearly what I am that I should have loved him like a 
brother, — always provided that I did not hate him 
for his resemblance to me, on the same principle as 
that which makes bodies in the same electric condi- 
tion repel each other. 

For, perhaps after all, my One Reader is quite as 
likely to be not the person most resembling myself, but 
the one to whom my nature is complementary. Just 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 43 

as a particular soil wants some one element to fertilize 
it, just as the body in some conditions has a kind of 
famine for one special food, so the mind has its wants^ 
which do not always call for what is best, but which 
know themselves and are as peremptory as the salt- 
sick sailor's call for a lemon or a raw potato, or, if 
you will, as those capricious " longings," which have 
a certain meaning, we may suppose, and which 
at any rate we think it reasonable to satisfy if we 
can. 

I was going to say something about our boarders 
the other day when I got run away with by my local 
reminiscences. I wish you to understand that we 
have a rather select company at the table of our 
boarding-house. 

Our Landlady is a most respectable person, who has 
seen better days, of course, — all landladies have, — 
but has also, I feel sure, seen a good deal worse ones. 
For she wears a very handsome silk dress on state 
occasions, with a breastpin set, as I honestly believe, 
with genuine pearls, and appears habitually with a 
very smart cap, from under which her gray curls come 
out with an unmistakable expression, conveyed in the 
hieratic language of the feminine priesthood, to the 
effect that while there is life there is hope. And 
when I come to reflect on the many circumstances 
which go to the making of matrimonial happiness, I 
<3annot help thinking that a personage of her present- 



44 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

able exterior, thoroughly experienced in all the domes- 
tic arts which render life comfortable, might make the 
later years of some hitherto companionless bachelor 
very endurable, not to say pleasant. 

The condition of the Landlady's family is, from 
what I learn, such as to make the connection I have 
alluded to, I hope with delicacy, desirable for inci- 
dental as well as direct reasons, provided a fitting 
match could be found. I was startled at hearing her 
address by the familiar name of Benjamin the young 
physician I have referred to, until I found on inquiry, 
what I might have guessed by the size of his slices of 
pie and other little marks of favoritism, that he was 
her son. He has recently come back from Europe, 
where he has topped off his home training with a first- 
class foreign finish. As the landlady could never have 
educated him in this way out of the profits of keeping 
boarders, I was not surprised when I was told that 
she had received a pretty little property in the form of 
a bequest from a former boarder, a very kind-hearted, 
worthy old gentleman who had been long with her 
and seen how hard she worked for food and clothes 
for herself and this son of hers, Benjamin Franklin by 
his baptismal name. Her daughter had also married 
well, to a member of what we may call the post- 
medical profession, that, namely, which deals with the 
mortal frame after the practitioners of the healing art 
have done with it and taken their leave. So thriving 
had this son-in-law of Hers been in his business, that 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 45 

his wife drove about in her own carriage, drawn by a 
pair of jet-black horses of most dignified demeanor, 
whose only fault was a tendency to relapse at once 
into a walk after every application of a stimulus that 
quickened their pace to a trot ; which application 
always caused them to look round upon the driver 
with a surprised and offended air, as if he had been 
guilty of a grave indecorum. 

The Landlady's daughter had been blessed with a 
number of children, of great sobriety of outward 
aspect, but remarkably cheerful in their inward habit 
of mind, more especially on the occasion of the death 
of a doll, which was an almost daily occurrence, and 
gave them immense delight in getting up a funeral, for 
which they had a complete miniature outfit. How 
happy they were under their solemn aspect ! For the 
head mourner, a child of remarkable gifts, could 
actually make the tears run down her cheeks, — as 
real ones as if she had been a grown person following 
a rich relative, who had not forgotten his connections, 
to his last unfurnished lodgings. 

So this was a most desirable family connection for 
the right man to step into, — a thriving, thrifty 
mother-in-law, who knew what was good for the suste- 
nance of the body, and had no doubt taught it to her 
daughter; a medical artist at hand in case the luxuries 
of the table should happen to disturb the physio- 
logical harmonies ; and in the worst event, a sweet 
consciousness that the last sad offices would be 



46 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

attended to with affectionate zeal, and probably a 
large discount from the usual charges. 

It seems as if I could hardly be at this table for a 
year, if I should stay so long, without seeing some 
romance or other work itself out under my eyes ; and 
I cannot help thinking that the Landlady is to be the 
heroine of the love-history like to unfold itself. I 
think I see the little cloud in the horizon, with a 
silvery lining to it, which may end in a rain of cards 
tied round with white ribbons. Extremes meet, and 
who so like to be the other party as the elderly gentle- 
man at the other end of the table, as far from her now 
as the length of the board permits ? I may be mis- 
taken, but I think this is to be the romantic episode 
of the year before me. Only it seems so natural it is 
improbable, for you never find your dropped money 
just where you look for it, and so it is with these a 
priori matches. 

This gentleman is a tight, tidy, wiry little man, with 
a small, brisk head, close-cropped white hair, a good 
wholesome complexion, a quiet, rather kindly face, 
quick in his movements, neat in his dress, but fond of 
wearing a short jacket over his coat, which gives him 
the look of a pickled or preserved school-boy. He 
has retired, they say, from a snug business, with a 
snug property, suspected by some to be rather more 
than snug, and entitling him to be called a capitalist, 
except that this word seems to be equivalent to high- 
way robber in the new gospel of Saint Petroleum. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 47 

That he is economical in his habits cannot be denied, 
for he saws and splits his own wood, — for exercise, 
he says, — and makes his own fires, brushes his own 
shoes, and, it is whispered, darns a hole in a stocking 
now and then, — all for exercise, I suppose. Every 
summer he goes out of town for a few weeks. On a 
given day of the month a wagon stops at the door and 
takes up, not his trunks, for he does not indulge in 
any such extravagance, but the stout brown linen bags 
in which he packs the few conveniences he carries 
with him. 

I do not think this worthy and economical person- 
age will have much to do or to say, unless he marries 
the Landlady. If he does that, he will play a part of 
some importance, — but I don't feel sure at all. His 
talk is little in amount, and generally ends in some 
compact formula condensing much wisdom in few 
words, as that a man should not put all his eggs in 
one basket ; that there are as good fish in the sea as 
ever came out of it ; and one in particular, which he 
surprised me by saying in pretty good French one day, 
to the effect that the inheritance of the world belongs 
to the phlegmatic people, which seems to me to have a 
good deal of truth in it. 

The other elderly personage, the old man with iron- 
gray hair and large round spectacles, sits at my right 
at table. He is a retired college officer, a man of 
books and observation, and himself an author. 
Magister Artium is one of his titles on the College 



48 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Catalogue, and I like best to speak of liim as the Mas- 
ter, because he has a certain air of authority which 
none of us feel inclined to dispute. He has given me 
a copy of a work of his which seems to me not want- 
ing in suggestiveness, and which I hope I shall be 
able to make some use of in my records by and by. I 
said the other day that he had good solid prejudices, 
which is true, and I like him none the worse for 
it ; but he has also opinions more or less original, 
valuable, probable, fanciful ; fantastic, or whimsical, 
perhaps, now and then ; which he promulgates at 
table somewhat in the tone of imperial edicts. An- 
other thing I like about him is, that he takes a certain 
intelligent interest in pretty much everything that 
interests other people. I asked him the other day 
what he thought most about in his wide range of 
studies. 

— Sir, — said he, — I take stock in everything that 
concerns anybody. Humani nihil, — you know the 
rest. But if you ask me what is my specialty, I 
should say, I applied myself more particularly to the 
contemplation of the Order of Things. 

— A pretty wide subject, — I ventured to suggest. 

— Not wide enough, sir, — not wide enough to 
satisfy the desire of a mind which wants to get at 
absolute truth, without reference to the empirical 
arrangements of our particular planet and its environ- 
ments. I want to subject the formal conditions of 
space and time to a new analysis, and project a possi- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 49 

ble universe outside of the Order of Things. But I 
have narrowed myself by studying the actual facts of 
being. By and by — by and by — perhaps — per- 
haps. I hope to do some sound thinking in heaven — 
if I ever get there, — he said seriously, and it seemed 
to me not irreverently. 

— I rather like that, — I said. I think your tel- 
escopic people are, on the whole, more satisfactory 
than your microscopic ones. 

[ — My left-hand neighbor fidgeted about a little in 
his chair as I said this. But the young man sitting 
not far from the landlady, to whom my attention had 
been attracted by the expression of his eyes, which 
seemed as if they saw nothing before him, but looked 
beyond everything, smiled a sort of faint starlight 
smile, that touched me strangely ; for until that 
moment he had appeared as if his thoughts were far 
away, and I had been questioning whether he had lost 
friends lately, or perhaps had never had them, he 
seemed so remote from our boarding-house life. I 
will inquire about him, for he interests me, and I 
thought he seemed interested as I went on talk- 
ing-] 

— N"o, — I continued, — I don't want to have the 

territory of a man's mind fenced in. I don't want to 
shut out the mystery of the stars and the awful 
hollow that holds them. We have done with those 
hypsethral temples, that were open above to the 
heavens, but we can have attics and skylights to them. 

3 D 



50 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Minds with skylights, — yes, — stop, let us see if we 
can't get something out of that. 

One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story 
intellects with skylights. All fact-collectors, who 
have no aim beyond their facts, are one-story men. 
Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the 
labors of the fact-collectors as well as their own. 
Three-story men idealize, imagine, predict ; their best 
illumination comes from above, through the skylight. 
There are minds with large ground-floors, that can 
store an infinite amount of knowledge ; some librae 
nans, for instance, who know enough of books to help 
other people, without being able to make much other 
use of their knowledge, have intellects of this class. 
Your great working lawyer has two spacious stories ; 
his mind is clear, because his mental floors are large, 
and he has room to arrange his thoughts so that he 
can get at them, — facts below, principles above, and 
all in ordered series ; poets are often narrow below, 
incapable of clear statement, and with small power of 
consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes 
rather bare of furniture, in the attics. 

— The Old Master smiled. I think he suspects 
himself of a three-story intellect, and I don't feel sure 
that he is n't right. 

— Is it dark meat or white meat you will be helped 
to ? — said the landlady, addressing the Master. 

— Dark meat for me, always, — he answered. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 51 

Then turning to me, he began one of those mono- 
logues of his, such as that which put the Member of 
the Haouse asleep the other day. 

— It 's pretty much the same in men and women 
and in books and everything, that it is in turkeys and 
chickens. Why, take your poets, now, say Browning 
and Tennyson. Don't you think you can say which is 
the dark-meat and which is the white-meat poet ? 
And so of the people you know ; can't you pick out 
the full-flavored, coarse-fibred characters from the 
delicate, fine-fibred ones ? And in the same person, 
don't you know the same two shades in different parts 
of the character that you find in the wing and thigh 
of a partridge ? I suppose you poets may like white 
meat best, very probably ; you had rather have a wing 
than a drumstick, I dare say. 

— Why, yes, — said I, — I suppose some of us do. 
Perhaps it is because a bird files with his white-fleshed 
limbs and walks with the dark-fleshed ones. Besides, 
the wing-muscles are nearer the heart than the leg- 
muscles. 

I thought that sounded mighty pretty, and paused 
a moment to pat myself on the back, as is my wont 
when I say something that I think of superior quality. 
So I lost my innings ; for the Master is apt to strike 
in at the end of a bar, instead of waiting for a rest, if 
I may borrow a musical phrase. No matter, just at 
this moment, what he said ; but he talked the Mem- 
ber of the Haouse asleep again. 



52 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

They have a new term nowadays (I am speaking to 
you, the Reader) for people that do a good deal of 
talking ; they call them ^^ conversationists/' or " con- 
versationalists " ; talkists, I suppose, would do just as 
well. It is rather dangerous to get the name of being 
one of these phenomenal manifestations, as one is 
expected to say something remarkable every time one 
opens one's mouth in company. It seems hard not to 
be able to ask for a piece of bread or a tumbler of 
water, without a sensation running round the table, as 
if one were an electric eel or a torpedo, and could n't 
be touched without giving a shock. A fellow isn't 
all battery, is he ? The idea that a Gymnotus can't 
swallow his worm without a coruscation of animal 
lightning, is hard on that brilliant but sensational 
being. Good talk is not a matter of will at aU ; it 
depends — you know we are all half-materialists now- 
adays — on a certain amount of active congestion of 
the brain, and that comes when it is ready, and not 
before. I saw a man get up the other day in a pleas- 
ant company, and talk away for about five minutes, 
evidently by a pure effort of will. His person was 
good, his voice was pleasant, but anybody could see 
that it was all mechanical labor ; he was sparring for 
wind, as the Hon. John Morrissey, M. C, would ex- 
press himself. Presently — 

Do you — Beloved, I am afraid you are not old 
enough — but do you remember the days of the tin 
tinder-box, the flint, and steel ? Click ! click ! click ) 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 53 

— Ah-h-h ! knuckles that time ! click ! click ! click ! 
a spark has taken, and is eating into the black tinder^ 
as a six-year-old eats into a sheet of gingerbread. 

Presently, after hammering away for his five min- 
utes with mere words, the spark of a happy expression 
took somewhere among the mental combustibles, and 
then for ten minutes we had a pretty, wandering, 
scintillating play of eloquent thought, that enlivened, 
if it did not kindle, all around it. If you want the 
real philosophy of it, I will give it to you. The chance 
thought or expression struck the nervous centre of 
consciousness, as the rowel of a spur stings the flank 
of a racer. Away through all the telegraphic radia/- 
tions of the nervous cords flashed the intelligence that 
the brain was kindling, and must be fed with some- 
thing or other, or it would burn itself to ashes. And 
all the great hydraulic engines poured in their scarlet 
blood, and the fire kindled, and the flame rose ; for 
the blood is a stream that, like burning rock-oil, at 
once kindles, and is itself the fuel. You can't order 
these organic processes, any more than a milliner can 
make a rose. She can make something that looks like 
a rose, more or less, but it takes all the forces of the 
universe to finish and sweeten that blossom in your 
button-hole ; and you may be sure that when the 
orator's brain is in a flame, when the poet's heart is in 
a tumult, it is something mightier than he and his will 
that is dealing with him ! As I have looked from one 
of the northern windows of the street which com- 



64 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

mands our noble estuary, — the view through which 
is a picture on an illimitable canvas and a poem in 
innumerable cantos, — I have sometimes seen a pleas- 
ure-boat drifting along, her sail flapping, and she 
seeming as if she had neither will nor aim. At her 
stern a man was laboring to bring her head round 
with an oar, to little purpose, as it seemed to those 
who watched him pulling and tugging. But all at 
once the wind of heaven, which had wandered all 
the way from Florida or from Labrador, it may be, 
struck full upon the sail, and it swelled and rounded 
itself, like a white bosom that had burst its bodice, 
and — 

— You are right ; it is too true ! but how I love 
these pretty phrases ! I am afraid I am becoming an 
epicure in words, which is a bad thing to be, unless 
it is dominated by something infinitely better than 
itself. But there is a fascination in the mere sound 
of articulated breath ; of consonants that resist with 
the firmness of a maid of honor^ or half or wholly 
yield to the wooing lips ; of vowels that flow and 
murmur, each after its kind ; the peremptory h and p, 
the brittle k, the vibrating r, the insinuating s, the 
feathery f, the velvety v, the bell-voiced m, the tran- 
quil broad a, the penetrating e, the cooing u, the emo- 
tional 0, and the beautiful combinations of alternate 
rock and stream, as it were, that they give to the 
rippling flow of speech, — there is a fascination in the 
skilful handling of these, which the great poets and 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 55 

even prose-writers have not disdained to acknowledge 
and use to recommend their thought. What do you 
say to this line of Homer as a piece of poetical full- 
band music ? I know you read the Greek characters 
with perfect ease, but permit me, just for my own 
satisfaction, to put it into English letters : — 

Aigle pamphanoosa di' aitheros ouranon ike ! 
as if he should have spoken in our poorer phrase of 
Splendor far shining througli ether to heaven ascending. 

That Greek line, "^hich I do not remember having 
heard mention of as remarkable, has nearly every 
consonantal and vowel sound in the language. Try it 
by the Greek and by the English alphabet ; it is a 
curiosity. Tell me that old Homer did not roll his 
sightless eyeballs about with delight, as he thundered 
out these ringing syllables ! It seems hard to think 
of his going round like a hand-organ man, with such 
music and such thought as his to earn his bread with. 
One can't help wishing that Mr. Pugh could have got 
at him for a single lecture, at least, of the "Star 
Course," or that he could have appeared in the Music 
Hall, " for this night only." 

— I know I have rambled, but I hope you see that 
this is a delicate way of letting you into the nature of 
the individual who is, ofiicially, the principal person- 
age at our table. It would hardly do to describe him 
directly, you know. But you must not think, because 
the lightning zigzags, it does not know where to strike. 



56 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I shall try to go through the rest of my description 
of our boarders with as little of digression as is cour 
sistent with my nature. I think we have a somewhat 
exceptional company. Since our landlady has got up 
in the world^ her board has been decidedly a favorite 
with persons a little above the average in point of 
intelligence and education. In fact, ever since a 
boarder of hers, not wholly unknown to the reading 
public, brought her establishment into notice, it has 
attracted a considerable number of literary and 
scientific people, and now and then a politician, like 
the Member of the House of Representatives, other- 
wise called the Great and General Court of the State 
of Massachusetts. The consequence is, that there is 
more individuality of character than in a good many 
similar boarding-houses, where all are business-men, 
engrossed in the same pursuit of money-making, or all 
are engaged in politics, and so deeply occupied with 
the welfare of the community that they can think and 
talk of little else. 

At my left hand sits as singular-looking a human 
being as I remember seeing outside of a regular 
museum or tent-show. His black coat shines as if it 
had been polished ; and it has been polished on the 
wearer's back, no doubt, for the arms and other points 
of maximum attrition are particularly smooth and 
bright. Round shoulders, — stooping over some 
minute labor, I suppose. Very slender limbs, with 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 57 

bends like a grasshopper's ; sits a great deal, I pre- 
sume ; looks as if he might straighten them out all of 
a sudden, and jump instead of walking. Wears gog- 
gles very commonly ; says it rests his eyes, which he 
strains in looking at very small objects. Yoice has 
a dry creak, as if made by some small piece of mech- 
anism that wanted oiling. I don't think he is a 
botanist, for he does not smell of dried herbs, but 
carries a camphorated atmosphere about with him, as 
if to keep the moths from attacking him. I must 
find out what is his particular interest. One ought to 
know something about his immediate neighbors at the 
table. This is what I said to myself, before opening 
a conversation with him. Everybody in our ward of 
the city was in a great stir about a certain election, 
and I thought I might as well begin with that as any- 
thing. 

— How do you think the vote is likely to go to- 
morrow ? — I said. 

— It is n't to-morrow, — he answered, — it 's next 
month. 

— N'ext month ! — said I. — Why, what election 
do you mean ? 

— I mean the election to the Presidency of the 
Entomological Society, sir, — he creaked, with an air 
of surprise, as if nobody could by any possibility have 
been thinking of any other. Great competition, sir, 
between the dipterists and the lepidopterists as to 
which shall get in their candidate. Several close 

3* 



58 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ballotings already ; adjourned for a fortniglit. Poor 
concerns both of 'em. Wait till our turn comes. 

— I suppose you are an entomologist ? — I said 
with a note of interrogation. 

— Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should 
like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to 
that name ! A society may call itself an Entomo- 
logical Society, but the man who arrogates such a 
broad title as that to himself, in the present state of 
science, is a pretender, sir, a dilettante, an impostor ! 
No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir ; the 
subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to 
grasp. 

— May I venture to ask, — I said, a little awed by 
his statement and manner, — what is your special 
province of study ? 

I am often spoken of as a Coleopterist, — he said, 
— but I have no right to so comprehensive a name. 
The genus Scarabseus is what I have chiefly confined 
myself to, and ought to have studied exclusively. 
The beetles proper are quite enough for the labor of 
one man's life. Call me a Scarabeeist if you will ; if 
I can prove myself worthy of that name, my highest 
ambition wdil be more than satisfied. 

I think, by way of compromise and convenience, I 
shall call him the Scarabee. He has come to look 
wonderfully like those creatures, — the beetles, I 
mean, — by being so much among them. His room 
is hung round with cases of them, each impaled on a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 69 

pin driven through him, something as they used to 
bury suicides. These cases take the place for him of 
pictures and all other oranments. That Boy steals 
into his room sometimes, and stares at them with 
great admiration, and has himself undertaken to form 
a rival cabinet, chiefly consisting of flies, so far, ar- 
ranged in ranks superintended by an occasional spider. 
The Old Master, who is a bachelor, has a kindly 
feeling for this little monkey, and those of his kind. 

— I like children, — he said to me one day at table, 
— I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the 
honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by 
them. Do you know they play the part in the house- 
hold which the king's jester, who very often had a 
mighty long head under his cap and bells, used to 
play for a monarch ? There 's no radical club like a 
nest of little folks in a nursery. Did you ever watch 
a baby's fingers? I have, often enough, though I 
never knew what it was to own one. — The Master 
paused half a minute or so, — sighed, — perhaps at 
thinking what he had missed in life, — looked up at 
me a little vacantly. I saw what was the matter ; he 
had lost the thread of his talk. 

— Baby's fingers, — I intercalated. 

— Yes, yes ; did you ever see how they will poke 
those wonderful little fingers of theirs into every fold 
and crack and crevice they can get at ? That is their 
first education, feeling their way into the solid facts of 
the material world. When they begin to talk it is the 



60 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

same thing over again in another shape. If there is a 
crack or a flaw in your answer to their confounded 
shoulder-hitting questions, they will poke and poke 
until they have got it gaping just as the baby's fingers 
have made a rent out of that atom of a hole in his 
pinafore that your old eyes never took notice of. 
Then they make such fools of us by copying on a 
small scale vfhat we do in the grand manner. I 
wonder if it ever occurs to our dried-up neighbor 
there to ask himself whether That Boy's collection of 
flies is n't about as significant in the Order of Things 
as his own Museum of Beetles ? 

— I couldn't help thinking that perhaps That Boy's 
questions about the simpler mysteries of life might 
have a good deal of the same kind of significance as 
the Master's inquiries into the Order of Things. 

— On my left, beyond my next neighbor the Scara- 
bee, at the end of the table, sits a person of whom 
we know little, except that he carries about him 
more palpable reminiscences of tobacco and the 
allied sources of comfort than a very sensitive organ- 
ization might find acceptable. The Master does not 
seem to like him much, for some reason or other, — 
perhaps he has a special aversion to the odor of to- 
bacco. As his forefinger shows a little too distinctly 
that he uses a pen, I shall compliment him by calling 
him the Man of Letters, until I find out more about 
him. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 61 

— The Young Girl who sits on my right, next 
beyond the Master, can hardly be more than nineteen 
or twenty years old. I wish I could paint her so as 
to interest others as much as she does me. But she 
has not a profusion of sunny tresses wreathing a neck 
of alabaster, and a cheek where the rose and the lily 
are trying to settle their old quarrel with alternating 
victory. Her hair is brown, her cheek is delicately 
pallid, her forehead is too ample for a ball-room 
beauty's. A single faint line between the eyebrows is 
the record of long-continued anxious efforts to please 
in the task she has chosen, or rather which has been 
forced upon her. It is the same line of anxious and 
conscientious effort which I saw not long since on the 
forehead of one of the sweetest and truest singers who 
has visited us ; the same which is so striking on the 
masks of singing women painted upon the facade of 
our Great Organ, — that Himalayan home of harmony 
which you are to see and then die, if you don't live 
where you can see and hear it often. Many deaths 
have happened in a neighboring large city from that 
well-known complaint. Icterus Invidiosorum, after re- 
turning from a visit to the Music Hall. The invari- 
able symptom of a fatal attack is the Risus Sardon- 
icus, — But the Young Girl. She gets her living 
by writing stories for a newspaper. Every week she 
furnishes a new story. If her head aches or her heart 
is heavy, so that she does not come to time with her 
story, she falls behindhand and has to live on credit. 



62 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

It sounds well enough to say that " she supports her- 
self by her pen/' but her lot is a trying one; it 
repeats the doom of the Danaides. The " Weekly 
Bucket " has no bottom, and it is her business to help 
fill it. Imagine for one moment what it is to tell a 
tale that must flow on, flow ever, without pausing ; 
the lover miserable and happy this week, to begin 
miserable again next week and end as before ; the 
villain scowling, plotting, punished; to scowl, plot, 
and get punished again in our next ; an endless 
series of woes and blisses, into each paragraph of 
which the forlorn artist has to throw all the liveli- 
ness, all the emotion, all the graces of style she is 
mistress of, for the wages of a maid of all work, and 
no more recognition or thanks from anybody than the 
apprentice who sets the types for the paper that 
prints her ever -ending and ever - beginning stories. 
And yet she has a pretty talent, sensibility, a natural 
way of writing, an ear for the music of verse, in which 
she sometimes indulges to vary the dead monotony 
of everlasting narrative, and a sufficient amount of 
invention to make her stories readable. I have found 
my eyes dimmed over them oftener than once, more 
with thinking about her, perhaps, than about her 
heroes and heroines. Poor little body ! Poor little 
mind ! Poor little soul ! She is one of that great 
company of delicate, intelligent, emotional young crea- 
tures, who are waiting, like that sail I spoke of, for 
some breath of heaven to fill their white bosoms, — 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 63 

(ove, the right of every woman ; religious emotion, 
sister of love, with the same passionate eyes, but cold, 
thin, bloodless hands, — some enthusiasm of humanity 
or divinity ; and find that life offers them, instead, a 
seat on a wooden bench, a chain to fasten them to it, 
and a heavy oar to pull day and night. We read the 
Arabian tales and pity the doomed lady who must 
amuse her lord and master from day to day or have 
her head cut off ; how much better is a mouth with- 
out bread to fill it than no mouth at all to fill, be- 
cause no head ? We have all round us a weary-eyed 
company of Scheherazades ! This is one of them, and 
I may call her by that name when it pleases me to do 
so. 

The next boarder I have to mention is the one who 
sits between the Young Girl and the Landlady. In a 
little chamber into wliich a small thread of sunshine 
finds its way for half an hour or so every day during a 
month or six weeks of the spring or autumn, at all 
other times obliged to content itself with ungilded 
daylight, lives this boarder, whom, without wronging 
any others of our company, I may call, as she is very 
generally called in the household. The Lady. In 
giving her this name it is not meant that there are no 
other ladies at our table, or that the handmaids who 
serve us are not ladies, or to deny the general prop- 
osition that everybody who wears the unbifurcated 
garment is entitled to that appellation. Only this 



64 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

lady has a look and manner which there is no mistak- 
ing as belonging to a person always accustomed to 
refined and elegant society. Her style is perhaps a 
little more courtly and gracious than some would like. 
The language and manner which betray the habitual 
desire of pleasing, and which add a charm to inter- 
course in the higher social circles, are liable to be con- 
strued by sensitive beings unused to such amenities as 
an odious condescension when addressed to persons 
of less consideration than the accused, and as a still 
more odious — you know the word — when directed 
to those who are esteemed by the world as consider- 
able personages. But of all this the accused are 
fortunately wholly unconscious, for there is nothing 
so entirely natural and unaffected as the highest 
breeding. 

From an aspect of dignified but undisguised econ- 
omy which showed itself in her dress as well as in her 
limited quarters, I suspected a story of shipwrecked 
fortune, and determined to question our Landlady. 
That worthy woman was delighted to tell the history 
of her most distinguished boarder. She was, as I 
had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of cir- 
cumstances had brought down from her high estate. 

— Did I know the Goldenrod family ? — Of course 
I did. — Well, the Lady was first cousin to Mrs. 
Midas Goldenrod. She had been here in her carriage 
to call upon her, — not very often. — Were her rich 
relations kind and helpful to her ? — Well, — yes ; at 



THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 65 

least they made her presents now and then. Three or 
four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and every 
Christmas they sent her a boquet, — it must cost as 
much as five dollars, the Landlady thought. 

— And how did the Lady receive these valuable 
and useful gifts ? 

— Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter 
and borrowed a glass tumbler and filled it with water, 
and put the boquet in it and set it on the waiter. It 
smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or 
two, but the Landlady thought it would n't have hurt 
'em if they 'd sent a piece of goods for a dress, or at 
least a pocket-handkercher or two, or something or 
other that she could 'a' made some kind of use of; 
but beggars must n't be choosers ; not that she was 
a beggar, for she 'd sooner die than do that if she was 
in want of a meal of victuals. There was a lady I 
remember, and she had a little boy and she was a 
widow, and after she 'd buried her husband she was 
dreadful poor, and she was ashamed to let her little 
boy go out in his old shoes, and copper-toed shoes 
they was too, because his poor little ten — toes — was 
a coming out of 'em ; and what do you think my hus- 
band's rich uncle, — well, there now, it was me and 
my little Benjamin, as he was then, there 's no use 
in hiding of it, — and what do you think my hus- 
band's uncle sent me but a plaster of Paris image of 
a young woman, that was — well, her appearance was 
n't respectable, and I had to take and wrap her up in 



66 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST -TABLE. 

a towel and poke her right into my closet, and there 
she stayed till she got her head broke and served her 
right, for she was n't fit to show folks. You need n't 
say anything about what I told you, but the fact is 
I was desperate poor before I began to support my- 
self taking boarders, and a lone woman without her — 
her — 

The sentence plunged into the gulf of her great 
remembered sorrow, and was lost to the records of 
humanity. 

— Presently she continued in answer to my ques- 
tions : The Lady was not very sociable ; kept mostly 
to herself. The Young Girl (our Scheherazade) used 
to visit her sometimes, and they seemed to like each 
other, but the Young Girl had not many spare hours 
for visiting. The Lady never found fault, but she 
was very nice in her tastes, and kept everything about 
her looking as neat and pleasant as she could. 

— What did she do ? — Why, she read, and she 
drew pictures, and she did needle-work patterns, and 
played on an old harp she had ; the gilt was mostly 
off, but it sounded very sweet, and she sung to it 
sometimes, those old songs that used to be in fashion 
twenty or thirty years ago, with words to 'em that 
folks could understand. 

Did she do anything to help support herself ? — 
The Landlady could n't say she did, but she thought 
there was rich people enough that ought to buy the 
flowers and things she worked and painted. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 67 

All this points to the fact that she was bred to be 
an ornamental rather than what is called a useful 
member of society. This is all very well as long as 
fortune favors those who are chosen to be the orna- 
mental personages ; but if the golden tide recedes and 
leaves them stranded, they are more to be pitied than 
almost any other class. "I cannot dig, to beg I am 
ashamed." 

I think it is unpopular in this country to talk much 
about gentlemen and gentlewomen. People are touchy 
about social distinctions, which no doubt are often in- 
vidious and quite arbitrary and accidental, but which 
it is impossible to avoid recognizing as facts of natural 
history. Society stratifies itself everywhere, and the 
stratum which is generally recognized as the upper- 
most will be apt to have the advantage in easy grace 
of manner and in unassuming confidence, and conse- 
quently be more agreeable in the superficial relations 
of life. To compare these advantages with the vir- 
tues and utilities would be foolish. Much of the 
noblest work in life is done by ill-dressed, awkward, 
ungainly persons ; but that is no more reason for 
undervaluing good manners and what we call high- 
breeding, than the fact that the best part of the sturdy 
labor of the world is done by men with exception- 
able hands is to be urged against the use of Brown 
Windsor as a preliminary to appearance in cultivated 
society. 

I mean to stand up for this poor lady, whoso 



68 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

usefulness in the world is apparently problematical. 
She seems to me like a picture which has fallen from 
its gilded frame and lies, face downward, on the dusty 
floor. The picture never was as needful as a window 
or a door, but it was pleasant to see it in its place, 
and it would be pleasant to see it there again, and I, 
for one, should be thankful to have the Lady restored 
by some turn of fortune to the position from which 
she has been so cruelly cast down. 

— I have asked the Landlady about the young man 
sitting near her, the same who attracted my attention 
the other day while I was talking, as I mentioned. 
He passes most of his time in a private observatory, 
it appears ; a watcher of the stars. That I suppose 
gives the peculiar look to his lustrous eyes. The Mas- 
ter knows him and was pleased to tell me something 
about him. 

You call yourself a Poet, — he said, — and we call 
you so, too, and so you are ; I read your verses and 
like 'em. But that young man lives in a world be- 
yond the imagination of poets, let me tell you. The 
daily home of his thought is in illimitable space, hov- 
ering between the two eternities. In his contempla- 
tions the divisions of time run together, as in the 
thought of his Maker. With him also, — I say it not 
profanely, — one day is as a thousand years and a 
thousand years as one day. 

This account of his occupation increased the inter- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 69 

est his look had excited in me, and I have observed 
him more particularly and found out more about him. 
Sometimes, after a long night's watching, he looks so 
pale and worn, that one would think the cold moon- 
light had stricken him with some malign effluence, 
such as it is fabled to send upon those who sleep in 
it. At such times he seems more like one who has 
come from a planet farther away from the sun than 
our earth, than like one of us terrestrial creatures. 
His home is truly in the heavens, and he practises an 
asceticism in the cause of science almost comparable 
to that of Saint Simeon Stylites. Yet they tell me 
he might live in luxury if he spent on himself what 
he spends on science. His knowledge is of that 
strange, remote character, that it seems sometimes 
almost superhuman. He knows the ridges and chasms 
of the moon as a surveyor knows a garden-plot he has 
measured. He watches the snows that gather around 
the poles of Mars ; he is on the lookout for the ex- 
pected comet at the moment when its faint stain of 
diffused light first shows itself; he analyzes the ray 
that comes from the sun's photosphere ; he measures 
the rings of Saturn; he counts his asteroids to see 
that none are missing, as the shepherd counts the 
sheep in his flock. A strange unearthly being ; lonely, 
dwelling far apart from the thoughts and cares of the 
planet on which he lives, — an enthusiast who gives 
his life to knowledge ; a student of antiquity, to whom 
the records of the geologist are modern pages in the 



70 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

great volume of being, and the pyramids a memo- 
randum of yesterday, as the eclipse or occultation that 
is to take place thousands of years hence is an event 
of to-morrow in the diary without beginning and with- 
out end where he enters the aspect of the passing mo- 
ment as it is read on the celestial dial. 

In very marked contrast with this young man is the 
something more than middle-aged Register of Deeds, 
a rusty, sallow, smoke-dried looking personage, who 
belongs to this earth as exclusively as the other be- 
longs to the firmament. His movements are as me- 
chanical as those of a pendulum, — to the office, where 
he changes his coat and plunges into messuages and 
building-lots; then, after changing his coat again, 
back to our table, and so, day by day, the dust of 
years gradually gathering around him as it does on 
the old folios that fill the shelves all round the 
great cemetery of past transactions of which he is the 
sexton. 

Of the Salesman who sits next him, nothing need 
be said except that he is good-looking, rosy, well- 
dressed, and of very polite manners, only a little more 
brisk than the approved style of carriage permits, — 
as one in the habit of springing with a certain alacrity 
at the call of a customer. 

You would like to see, I don't doubt, how we sit 
at the table, and I will help you by means of a dia- 



o 


o 


o 


o 


o 


o 


o 










o 


o 


o 


o 


o 


o 


o 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 71 

gram which shows the present arrangement of our 
seats. 

The The Young Girl The Master The The The Man 

Lady. (Scheherazade). of Arts. Poet. Searabee. of Letters (?). 



3? O O 



Dr. That The The Member of The Register The 

B. Franklin. Boy. Astronomer, the Uaouse. of Deeds. Salesman. 

Our young Scheherazade varies her prose stories 
now and then, as I told you, with compositions in 
verse, one or two of which she has let me look over. 
Here is one of them, which she allowed me to copy. 
It is from a story of hers, "The Sun-Worshipper's 
Daughter," which you may find in the periodical be- 
fore mentioned, to which she is a contributor, if you 
can lay your hand upon a file of it. I think our 
Scheherazade has never had a lover in human shape, 
or she would not play so lightly with the firebrands 
of the great passion. 

FANTASIA. 

Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, 
Blushing into life new-born ! 
Lend me violets for my hair, 
And tby russet robe to wear, 
And thy ring of rosiest hue 
Set in drops of diamond dew\ 



72 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, 
From my Love so far away I 
Let thy splendor streaming down 
Turn its pallid lilies brown, 
Till its darkening shades reveal 
Where his passion pressed its seal I 

Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light, 
Kiss my lips a soft good night I 
Westward sinks thy golden car ; 
Leave me but the evening star, 
And my solace that shall be, 
Borrowing all its light from thee! 



III. 

The old Master was talking about a concert he had 
been to hear. 

— I don't like your chopped music any way. That 
woman — she had more sense in her little finger than 
forty medical societies — Florence Nightingale — says 
that the music you pour out is good for sick folks, 
and the music you pound out is n't. Not that exactly, 
but something like it. I have been to hear some 
music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as 
many white muslin flounces round her as the planet 
Saturn has rings, that did it. She gave the music- 
stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a 
whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 73 

up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the cham- 
pion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her 
hands^ to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her 
fingers till they looked as though they would pretty 
much cover the key-board, from the growling end to 
the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers 
made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of 
tigers coming down on a flock of black and white 
sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail 
had been trod on. Dead stop, — so still you could 
hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and an- 
other howl, as if the piano had two tails and you 
had trod on both of 'em at once, and then a grand 
clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and 
down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like 
a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I 
call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like 
to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer 
out of their wood and ivory anvils — don't talk to me, 
I know the difference between a bullfrog and a wood- 
thrush and — 

Pop ! went a small piece of artillery such as is 
made of a stick of elder and carries a pellet of very 
moderate consistency. That Boy was in his seat and 
looking demure enough, but there could be no ques- 
tion that he was the artillery-man who had discharged 
the missile. The aim was not a bad one, for it took 
the Master full in the forehead, and had the effect of 
checking the flow of his eloquence. How the little 

4 



74 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

monkey had learned to time his interruptions I- do not 
know, but I have observed more than once before 
this, that the popgun would go off just at the moment 
when some one of the company was getting too 
energetic or prolix. The boy is n't old enough to 
judge for himself when to intervene to change the 
order of conversation ; no, of course he is n't. Some- 
body must give him a hint. Somebody. — Who is it ? 
I suspect Dr. B. Franklin. He looks too knowing. 
There is certainly a trick somewhere. Why, a day or 
two ago I was myself discoursing, with considerable 
effect, as I thought, on some of the new aspects of hu- 
manity, when I was struck full on the cheek by one 
of these little pellets, and there was such a confound- 
ed laugh that I had to wind up and leave off with a 
preposition instead of a good mouthful of polysyl- 
lables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, 
and have been entirely unable to detect any signs of 
communication between him and this audacious child, 
who is like to become a power among us, for that 
popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet. 
I have suspected a foot under the table as the prompt- 
er, but I have been unable to detect the slightest 
movement or look as if he were making one, on the 
part of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. I cannot help think- 
ing of the flappers in Swift's Laputa, only they gave 
one a hint when to speak and another a hint to listen, 
whereas the popgun says unmistakably, " Shut up ! " 
— I should be soiTy to lose my confidence in Dr. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 75 

B. Franklin, who seems very much devoted to his 
business, and whom I mean to consult about some 
small symptoms I have had lately. Perhaps it is 
coming to a new boarding-house. The young people 
who come into Paris from the provinces are very apt 
' — so I have been told by one that knows — to have 
an attack of typhoid fever a few weeks or months 
after their arrival. I have not been long enough at 
this table to get well acclimated ; perhaps that is it. 
Boarding-House Fever. Something like horse-ail, 
very likely, — horses get it, you know, when they are 
brought to city stables. A little "oif my feed," as 
Hiram Woodruff would say. A queer discoloration 
about my forehead. Query, a bump ? Cannot re- 
member any. Might have got it against bedpost or 
something while asleep. Very unpleasant to look so. 
I wonder how my portrait would look, if anybody 
should take it now ! I hope not quite so badly as 
one I saw the other day, which I took for the end 
man of the Ethiopian Serenaders, or some traveller 
who had been exploring the sources of the Niger, un- 
til I read the name at the bottom and found it was a 
face I knew as well as my own. 

I must consult somebody, and it is nothing more 
than fair to give our young Doctor a chance. Here 
goes for Dr. Benjamin Franklin. 

The young Doctor has a very small office and a 
very large sign, with a transparency at night big 
enough for an oyster-shop. These young doctors are 



76 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

particularly strong, as I understand, on what they call 
diagnosis, — an excellent branch of the healing art, 
full of satisfaction to the curious practitioner, who 
likes to give the right Latin name to one's complaint ; 
not quite so satisfactory to the patient, as it is not so 
very much pleasanter to be bitten by a dog with a 
collar round his neck telling you that he is called 
Snap or Teaser, than by a dog without a collar. 
Sometimes, in fact, one would a little rather not know 
the exact name of his complaint, as if he does he is 
pretty sure to look it out in a medical dictionary, and 
then if he reads. This terrible disease is attended with 
vast suffering and is inevitably mortal, or any such 
statement, it is apt to affect him unpleasantly. 

I confess to a little shakiness when I knocked at 
Dr. Benjamin's office door. " Come in ! " exclaimed 
Dr. B. F. in tones that sounded ominous and sepul- 
chral. And I went in. 

I don't believe the chambers of the Inquisition ever 
presented a more alarming array of implements for ex- 
tracting a confession, than our young Doctor's office 
did of instruments to make nature tell what was the 
matter with a poor body. 

There were Ophthalmoscopes and Rhinoscopes and 
Otoscopes and Laryngoscopes and Stethoscopes ; and 
Thermometers and Spirometers and Dynamometers 
and Sphygmometers and Pleximeters ; and Probes 
and Probangs and all sorts of frightful inquisitive ex- 
ploring contrivances ; and scales to weigh you in, and 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 77 

tests and balances and pumps and electro-magnets 
and magneto-electric machines ; in short, apparatus 
for doing everything but turn you inside out. 

Dr. Benjamin set me down before his one window 
and began looking at me with such a superhuman air 
of sagacity, that I felt like one of those open-breasted 
clocks which make no secret of their inside arrange- 
ments, and almost thought he could see through me 
as one sees through a shrimp or a jelly-fish. First he 
looked at the place inculpated, which had a sort of 
greenish-brown color, with his naked eyes, with much 
corrugration of forehead and fearful concentration of 
attention ; then through a pocket-glass which he car- 
ried. Then he drew back a space, for a perspective 
view. Then he made me put out my tongue and laid 
a slip of blue paper on it, which turned red and scared 
me a little. Next he took my wrist ; but instead of 
counting my pulse in the old-fashioned way, he fas- 
tened a machine to it that marked all the beats on a 
sheet of paper, — for all the world like a scale of the 
heights of mountains, say from Mount Tom up to 
Chimborazo and then down again, and up again, and 
so on. In the mean time he asked me all sorts of 
questions about myself and all my relatives, whether 
we had been subject to this and that malady, until I 
felt as if we must some of us have had more or less 
of them, and could not feel quite sure whether Ele- 
phantiasis and Beriberi and Progressive Locomotor 
Ataxy did not run in the family. 



78 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

After all this overhauling of myself and my history, 
he paused and looked puzzled. Something was sug- 
gested about what he called an " exploratory punc- 
ture." This I at once declined, with thanks. Sud- 
denly a thought struck him. He looked still more 
closely at the discoloration I have spoken of. 

— Looks like — I declare it reminds me of — very 
rare ! very curious ! It would be strange if my first 
case — of this kind — should be one of our boarders ! 

What kind of a case do you call it ? — I said, with 
a sort of feeling that he could inflict a severe or a 
light malady on me, as if he were a judge passing 
sentence. 

— The color reminds me, — said Dr. B. Franklin, 
^ — of what I have seen in a case of Addison's Disease, 
Morbus Addisonii, 

— But my habits are quite regular, — I said ; for I 
remembered that the distinguished essayist was too 
fond of his brandy and water, and I confess that the 
thought was not pleasant to me of following Dr. 
Johnson's advice, with the slight variation of giving 
my days and my nights to trying on the favorite mala- 
dies of Addison. 

— Temperance people are subject to it! — ex- 
claimed Dr. Benjamin, almost exultingly, I thought. 

— But I had the impression that the author of the 
Spectator was afflicted with a dropsy, or some such 
inflated malady, to which persons of sedentary and 
bibacious habits are liable. [A literary swell, — I 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 79 

thought to myself, but I did not say it. I felt too 
serious.] 

— The author of the Spectator ! — cried out Dr. 
Benjamin, — I mean the celebrated Dr. Addison, in- 
ventor, I would say discoverer, of the wonderful new 
disease called after him. 

— And what may this valuable invention or discov- 
ery consist in ? — I asked, for I was curious to know 
the nature of the gift which this benefactor of the race 
had bestowed upon us. 

— A most interesting affection, and rare, too. Al- 
low me to look closely at that discoloration once more 
for a moment. Cutis wnea, bronze skin, they call it 
sometimes — extraordinary pigmentation — a little 
more to the light, if you please — ah ! now I get the 
bronze ^coloring admirably, beautifully ! Would you 
have any objection to showing your case to the Socie- 
ties of Medical Improvement and Medical Observa- 
tion? 

[ — My case ! dear !] May I ask if any vital 
organ is commonly involved in this interesting com- 
plaint ? — I said, faintly. 

— Well, sir, — the young Doctor replied, — there is 
an organ which is — sometimes — a little — touched, 
I may say ; a very curious and — ingenious little organ 
or pair of organs. Did you ever hear of the Capsulce 
Suprarenales ? 

— No, — said I, — is it a mortal complaint? — I 
ought to have known better than to ask such a ques- 



80 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

tion, but I was getting nervous and thinking about all 
sorts of horrid maladies people are liable to, with hor- 
rid names to match. 

— It isn't a complaint, — I mean they are not a 
complaint, — they are two small organs, as I said, in- 
side of you, and nobody knows what is the use of them. 
The most curious thing is that when anything is the 
matter with them you turn of the color of bronze. 
After all, I did n't mean to say I believed it was Mor- 
bus Addisonii; I only thought of that when I saw 
the discoloration. 

So he gave me a recipe, which I took care to put 
where it could do no hurt to anybody, and I paid him 
his fee (which he took with the air of a man in the re- 
ceipt of a great income) and said Good morning. 

— What in the name of a thousand diablos is the 
reason these confounded doctors will mention their 
guesses about " a case," as they call it, and all its con- 
ceivable possibilities, out loud before their patients? 
I don't suppose there is anything in all this nonsense 
about " Addison's Disease," but I wish he had n't 
spoken of that very interesting ailment, and I should 
feel a little easier if that discoloration would leave 
my forehead. I will ask the Landlady about it, — 
these old women often know more than the young 
doctors just come home with long names for every- 
thing they don't know how to cure. But the name 
of this complaint sets me thinking. Bronzed skin I 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 81 

What an odd idea! Wonder if it spreads all over 
one. That would be picturesque and pleasant, now, 
would n't it ? To be made a living statue of, — noth- 
ing to do but strike an attitude. Arm up — so — 
like the one in the Garden. John of Bologna's 
Mercury — thus — on one foot. Needy knife-grinder 
in the Tribune at Florence. No, not " needy," come 
to think of it. Marcus Am'elius on horseback. Query. 
Are horses subject to the Morbus Addisonii ? Adver- 
tise for a bronzed living horse — Lyceum invitations 
and engagements — bronze versus brass. — What 's the 
use in being frightened ? Bet it was a bump. Pretty 
certain I bumped my forehead against something. 
Never heard of a bronzed man before. Have seen 
white men, black men, red men, yellow men, two or 
three blue men, stained with doctor's stuff; some 
green ones, — from the country ; but never a bronzed 
man. Poh, poh ! Sure it was a bump. Ask Land- 
lady to look at it. 

— Landlady did look at it. Said it was a bump, 
and no mistake. Recommended a piece of brown 
paper dipped in vinegar. Made the house smell as 
if it was in quarantine for the plague from Smyrna, 
but discoloration soon disappeared, — so I did not 
become a bronzed man after all, — hope I never shall 
while I am alive. Shouldn't mind being done in 
bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so 
clear about it, remembering how some of them look 
that we have got stuck up in public; think I had 

4* F 



82 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel 
portrait^ like our friend's the other day. 

— You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the 
Master, that you read my poems and liked them. 
Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what it 
is you like about them ? 

The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it 
up before me. — Will you tell me — he said — why you 
like that breakfast-roll ? — I suppose he thought that 
would stop my mouth in two senses. But he was 
mistaken. 

— To be sure I will, — said I.- — First, I like its 
mechanical consistency; brittle externally, — that is 
for the teeth, which want resistance to be overcome ; 
soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, — 
that is for the organ of taste ; wholesome, nutritious, 
— that is for the internal surfaces and the system 
generally. 

— Good ! — said the Master, and laughed a hearty 
terrestrial laugh. 

I hope he will carry that faculty of an honest laugh 
with him wherever he goes, — why shouldn't he? 
The "order of things," as he calls it, from which 
hilarity was excluded, would be crippled and one- 
sided enough. I don't believe the human gamut will 
be cheated of a single note after men have done 
breathing this fatal atmospheric mixture and die into 
the ether of immortality ! 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 83 

I didn't say all that; if I had said it, it would have 
brought a pellet from the popgun, I feel quite certain. 

The Master went on after he had had out his laugh. 
— There is one thing I am His Imperial Majesty 
about, and that is my likes and dislikes. What if 
I do like your verses, — you can't help yourself. I 
don't doubt somebody or other hates 'em and hates 
you and everything you do, or ever did, or ever can do. 
He is all right; there is nothing you or I like that 
somebody doesn't hate. Was there ever anything 
w^holesome that was not poison to somebody ? If you 
hate honey or cheese, or the products of the dairy, — 
I know a family a good many of whose members can't 
touch milk, butter, cheese, and the like, — why, say so, 
but don't find fault with the bees and the cows. 
Some are afi'aid of roses, and I have known those 
that thought a pond-lily a disagreeable neighbor. That 
Boy will give you the metaphysics of likes and dislikes. 
Look here, — ^you young philosopher over there, — do 
you like candy ? 

That Boy. — You bet ! Give me a stick and see if 
I don't. 

And can you tell me why you like candy ? 

That Boy, — Because I do. 

— There, now, that is the whole matter in a nut- 
shell. Why do your teeth like crackling crust, and 
your organs of taste like spongy crumb, and your 
digestive contrivances take kindly to bread rather than 
toadstools — 



84 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

That Boy (thinking he was still being catechised). 
— Because they do. 

Whereupon the Landlady said, Sh ! and the Young 
Girl laughed, and the Lady smiled; and Dr. Ben. 
Franklin kicked him, moderately, under the table, and 
the Astronomer looked up at the ceiling to see what 
had happened, and the member of the Haouse cried, 
Order ! Order ! and the Salesman said. Shut up, cash- 
boy! and the rest of the boarders kept on feeding; 
except the Master, who looked very hard but half 
approvingly at the small intruder, who had come about 
as nearly right as most professors would have done. 

— You poets, — the Master said after this excite- 
ment had calmed down, — you poets have one thing 
about you that is odd. You talk about everything as 
if you knew more about it than the people whose 
business it is to know all about it. I suppose you do 
a little of what we teachers used to call " cramming " 
now and then ? 

— If you like your breakfast you must n't ask the 
cook too many questions, — I answered. 

— 0, come now, don't be afraid of letting out your 
secrets. I have a notion I can tell a poet that gets 
himself up just as I can tell a make-believe old man 
on the stage by the line where the gray skull-cap joins 
the smooth forehead of the young fellow of seventy. 
You '11 confess to a rhyming dictionary anyhow, won't 
you ? 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 85 

— I would as lief use that as any other dictionary, 
but I don't want it. When a word comes up fit to 
end a line with I can feel all the rhymes in the lan- 
guage that are fit to go with it without naming them. 
I have tried them all so many times, I know all the 
polygamous words and all the monogamous ones, 
and all the unmarrying ones, — the whole lot that 
have no mates, — as soon as I hear their names called. 
Sometimes I run over a string of rhymes, but generally 
speaking it is strange what a short list it is of those 
that are good for anything. That is the pitiful side of 
all rhymed verse. Take two such words as home and 
world. What can you do with chrome or loam or 
gnome or tome ? You have dome, foam, and roam, 
and not much more to use in your pome, as some of 
our fellow-countrymen call it. As for world, you 
know that in all human probability somebody or some- 
thing will be hurled into it or out of it; its clouds 
may be furled or its grass impearled^ • possibly some- 
thing may be whirled, or curled, or have swirled, — 
one of Leigh Hunt's words, which with lush, one of 
Keats's, is an important part of the stock in trade 
of some dealers in rhyme. 

— And how much do you versifiers know of all those 
arts and sciences you refer to as if you were as familiar 
with them as a cobbler is with his wax and lapstone ? 

— Enough not to make too many mistakes. The 
best way is to ask some expert before one risks him- 
self very far in illustrations from a branch he does not 



86 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

know much about. Suppose, for instance, I wanted 
to use the double star to illustrate anything, say the 
relation of two human souls to each other, what would 
I do ? Why, I would ask our young friend there to 
let me look at one of those loving celestial pairs 
through his telescope, and I don't doubt he 'd let me 
do so, and tell me their names and all I wanted to 
know about them. 

— I should be most happy to show any of the 
double stars or whatever else there might be to see in 
the heavens to any of our friends at this table, — the 
young man said, so cordially and kindly that it was a 
real invitation. 

— Show us the man in the moon, — said That 
Boy. 

— I should so like to see a double star ! — said 
Scheherazade, with a very pretty air of smiling modesty. 

— Will you go, if we make up a party ? — I asked 
the Master. 

— A cold in the head lasts me from three to five 
days, — answered the Master. — I am not so very 
fond of being out in the dew like Nebuchadnezzar : 
that will do for you young folks. 

— I suppose I must be one of the young folks, — 
not so young as our Scheherazade, nor so old as the 
Capitalist, — young enough at any rate to want to be 
of the party. So we agreed that on some fair night 
when the Astronomer should tell us that there was to 
be a fine show in the skies, we would make up a party 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 87 

and go to the Observatory. I asked the Scarabee 
whether he would not Kke to make one of us. 

— Out of the question, sir, out of the question. I 
am altogether too much occupied with an important 
scientific investigation to devote any considerable part 
of an evening to star-gazing. 

— O, indeed, — said I, — and may I venture to 
ask on what particular point you are engaged just at 
present ? 

— Certainly, sir, you may. It is, I suppose, as dif- 
ficult and important a matter to be investigated as 
often comes before a student of natural history. I 
wish to settle the point once for all whether the Pedi- 
culus MelittoBr is or is not the larva of Meloe, 

[" — Kow is n't this the drollest world to live in that 
one could imagine, short of being in a fit of delirium 
tremens ? Here is a fellow-creature of mine and yours 
who is asked to see all the glories of the firmament 
brought close to him, and he is too busy with a little 
unmentionable parasite that infests tjie bristly surface 
of a bee to spare an hour or two of a single evening 
for the splendors of the universe ! I must get a peep 
through that microscope of his and see the pediculus 
which occupies a larger space in his mental vision than 
the midnight march of the solar systems. — The crea- 
ture, the human one, I mean, interests me.] 

— I am very curious, — I said, — about that pedicu- 
lus melittce, — (lust as if I knew a good deal about 
3ie little wretch and wanted to know more, whereas I 



88 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

had never heard him spoken of before, to my knowl- 
edge,) — could you let me have a sight of him in your 
microscope ? 

— You ought to have seen the way in which the 
poor dried-up little Scarabee turned towards me. His 
eyes took on a really human look, and I almost thought 
those antennse-like arms of his would have stretched 
themselves out and embraced me. I don't believe any 
of the boarders had ever shown any interest in him, 
except the little monkey of a Boy, since he had been 
in the house. It is not strange ; he had not seemed 
to me much like a human being, until all at once I 
touched the one point where his vitality had concen- 
trated itself, and he stood revealed a man and a 
brother. 

— Come in, — said he, — come in, right after break- 
fast, and you shall see the animal that has convulsed 
the entomological world with questions as to his na- 
ture and origin. 

— So I went into the Scarabee's parlor, lodging- 
room, study, laboratory, and museum, — a single 
apartment applied to these various uses, you under- 
stand. 

— I wish I had time to have you show me all your 
treasures, — I said, — but I am afraid I shall hardly 
be able to do more than look at the bee-parasite. But 
what a superb butterfly you have in that case ! 

— 0, yes, yes, well enough, — came from South 
America with the beetle there ; look at him ! These 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 89 

Lepidoptera are for children to play with, pretty to look 
at, so some think. Give me the Coleoptera, and the 
kings of the Coleoptera are the beetles ! Lepidoptera 
and Neuroptera for little folks ; Coleoptera for men, 
sir! 

— The particular beetle he showed me in the case 
with the magnificent butterfly was an odious black 
wretch that one would say, Ugh ! at, and kick out of 
his path, if he did not serve him worse than that. But 
he looked at it as a coin-collector would look at a 
Pescennius Niger, if the coins of that Emperor are as 
scarce as they used to be when I was collecting half- 
penny tokens and pine-tree shillings and battered bits 
of Roman brass with the head of Gallienus or some 
such old fellow on them. 

— A beauty ! — he exclaimed, — and the only speci- 
men of the kind in this country, to the best of my be- 
lief. A unique, sir, and there is a pleasure in exclu- 
sive possession. Not another beetle like that short of 
South America, sir. 

— I was glad to hear that there were no more like 
it in this neighborhood, the present supply of coct 
roaches answering every purpose so far as I am con- 
cerned, that such an animal as this would be likely to 
sers^e. 

— Here are my bee-parasites, — said the Scarabee, 
showing me a box full of glass slides, each with a speci- 
men ready mounted for the microscope. I was most 
struck with one little beast flattened out like a turfle^ 



90 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

semi-transparent, six-legged, as I remember him, and 
every leg terminated by a single claw hooked like a 
lion's and as formidable for the size of the creature as 
that of the royal beast. 

— Lives on a bumblebee, does he ? — I said. — 
That 's the way I call it. Bumblebee or bumblybee 
and huckleberry. Humblebee and whortleberrry for 
people that say Woos-ses-ter and Kor-wich. 

— The Scarabee did not smile ; he took no interest 
in trivial matters like this. 

— [Lives on a bumblebee. When you come to 
think of it, he must lead a pleasant kind of life. Sails 
through the air without the trouble of flying. Free 
pass everywhere that the bee goes. No fear of being 
dislodged ; look at those six grappling-hooks. Helps 
himself to such juices of the bee as he likes best ; 
the bee feeds on the choicest vegetable nectars, and 
he feeds on the bee. Lives either in the air or in 
the perfumed pavilion of the fairest and sweetest 
flowers. Think what tents the hollyhocks and the 
great lilies spread for him ! And wherever he travels 
a band of music goes with him, for this hum which 
wanders by us is doubtless to him a vast and inspir- 
ing strain of melody.] — I thought all this, while the 
Scarabee supposed I was studying the minute char- 
acters of the enigmatical specimen. 

— I know what I consider your pediculus melittcB, 
I said at length. 

Do you think it really the larva of meloe ? 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 91 

— 0, I don't know much about that, but I think 
he is the best cared for, on the whole, of any animal 
that I know of ; and if I was n't a man I believe I 
had rather be that little sybarite than anything that 
feasts at the board of nature. 

— The question is, whether he is the larva of meloe, 
— the Scarabee said, as if he had not heard a word 
of what I had just been saying. — If I live a few 
years longer it shall be settled, sir ; and if my epitaph 
can say honestly that I settled it, I shall be willing 
to trust my posthumous fame to that achievement. 

I said good morning to the specialist, and went off 
feeling not only kindly, but respectfully towards him. 
He is an enthusiast, at any rate, as ^' earnest " a man 
as any philanthropic reformer who, having passed his 
life in worrying people out of their misdoings into 
good behavior, comes at last to a state in which he is 
never contented except when he is making somebody 
uncomfortable. He does certainly know one thing 
well, very likely better than anybody in the world. 

I find myself somewhat singularly placed at our ta- 
ble between a minute philosopher who has concen- 
trated all his faculties on a single subject, and my 
friend who finds the present universe too restricted 
for his intelligence. I would not give much to hear 
what the Scarabee says about the old Master, for he 
does not pretend to form a judgment of anything but 
beetles, but I should like to hear what the Master has 
to say about the Scarabee. I waited after breakfast 



92 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

until he had gone, and then asked the Master what he 
could make of our dried-up friend. 

— Well, — he said, — I am hospitable enough in 
my feelings to him and all his tribe. These specialists 
are the coral-insects that build up a reef. By and by 
it will be an island, and for aught we know may grow 
into a continent. But I don't want to be a coral- 
insect myself. I had rather be a voyager that visits all 
the reefs and islands the creatures build, and sails over 
the seas where they have as yet built up nothing. I 
am a little afraid that science is breeding us down too 
fast into coral-insects. A man like Newton or Leib- 
nitz or Haller used to paint a picture of outward or 
inward nature with a free hand, and stand back and 
look at it as a whole and feel like an archangel ; but 
nowadays you have a Society, and they come together 
and make a great mosaic, each man bringing his little 
bit and sticking it in its place, but so taken up with 
his petty fragment that he never thinks of looking at 
the picture the little bits make when they are put to- 
gether. You can't get any talk out of these special- 
ists away from their own subjects, any more than you 
can get help from a policeman outside of his own 
beat. 

— Yes, — said I, — but why should n't we always 
set a man talking about the thing he knows best ? 

— No doubt, no doubt;, if you meet him once ; but 
what are you going to do with him if you meet him 
every day? I travel with a man and we want to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 93 

make change very often in paying bills. But every 
time I ask him to change a pistareen, or give me two 
fo'pencehappennies for a ninepence, or help me to 
make out two and thrippence (mark the old Master's 
archaisms about the currency), what does the fellow 
do but put his hand in his pocket and pull out an old 
Roman coin ; I have no change, says he, but this as- 
sarion of Diocletian. Mighty deal of good that '11 
do me ! 

— It is n't quite so handy as a few specimens of the 
modern currency would be, but you can pump him on 
numismatics. 

— To be sure, to be sure. I 've pumped a thousand 
men of all they could teach me, or at least all I could 
learn from 'em ; and if it comes to that, I never saw 
the man that couldn't teach me something. I can 
get along with everybody in his place, though I think 
the place of some of my friends is over there among 
the feeble-minded pupils, and I don't believe there 's 
one of them I could n't go to school to for half an 
hour and be the wiser for it. But people you talk 
with every day have got to have feeders for their 
minds, as much as the stream that turns a mill-wheel 
has. It is n't one little rill that 's going to keep the float- 
boards turning round. Take a dozen of the brightest 
men you can find in the brightest city, wherever that 
may be, — perhaps you and I think we know, — and 
let 'em come together once a month, and you '11 find 
out in the course of a year or two the ones that have 



94 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

feeders from all the hillsides. Your common talkers, 
that exchange the gossip of the day, have no wheel in 
particular to turn, and the wash of the rain as it runs 
down the street is enough for them. 

— Do you mean you can always see the sources 
from which a man fills his mind, — his feeders, as you 
call them ? 

— I don't go quice so far as that, — the Master 
said. — I Ve seen men whose minds were always over- 
flowing, and yet they did n't read much nor go much 
into the world. Sometimes you '11 find a bit of a 
pond-hole in a pasture, and you '11 plunge your walk- 
ing-stick into it and think you are going to touch bot- 
tom. But you find you are mistaken. Some of these 
little stagnant pond-holes are a good deal deeper than 
you think ; you may tie a stone to a bed-cord and not 
get soundings in some of 'em. The country boys will 
tell you they have no bottom, but that only means 
that they are mighty deep ; and so a good many stag- 
nant, stupid-seeming people are a great deal deeper 
than the length of your intellectual walking-stick, I 
can tell you. There are hidden springs that keep the 
little pond-holes full when the mountain brooks are 
all dried up. You poets ought to know that. 

— I can't help thinking you are more tolerant to- 
wards the specialists than I thought at first, by the 
way you seemed to look at our dried-up neighbor and 
his small pursuits. 

— I don't like the word tolerant, — the Master 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 95 

said. — As long as the Lord can tolerate me I think I 
can stand my fellow-creatures. Philosophically I love 
'em all ; empirically, I don't think I am very fond of 
all of 'em. It depends on how you look at a man or 
a woman. Come here, Youngster, will you ? — he 
said to That Boy. 

The Boy was trying to catch a blue-bottle to add to 
his collection, and was indisposed to give up the 
chase; but he presently saw that the Master had 
taken out a small coin and laid it on the table, and 
felt himself drawn in that direction. 

Read that, — said the Master. 

U-n-i-ni — - United States of America 5 cents. 

The Master turned the coin over. Now read that. 

In God is our t-r-u-s-t — trust. 1869. 

— Is that the same piece of money as the other 
one? 

— There ain't any other one, — said the Boy, — 
there ain't but one, but it 's got two sides to it with 
different reading. 

— That's it, that's it, — said the Master, — two 
sides to everybody, as there are to that piece of money. 
I 've seen an old woman that would n't fetch five cents 
if you should put her up for sale at public auction ; and 
yet come to read the other side of her, she had a trust 
in God Almighty that was like the bow anchor of a 
three-decker. It 's faith in something and enthusiasm 
for something that makes a life worth looking at. I 
don't think your ant-eating specialist, with his sharp 



9Q THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST -TABLE. 

nose and pin-head eyes, is the best every-day compan- 
ion ; but any man who knows one thing well is worth 
listening to for once ; and if you are of the large-brained 
variety of the race, and want to fill out your pro- 
gramme of the order of things in a systematic and ex- 
haustive way, and get all the half-notes and flats and 
sharps of humanity into your scale, you 'd a great deal 
better shut your front door and open your two side 
ones when you come across a fellow that has made a 
real business of doing anything. 

— That Boy stood all this time looking hard at the 
five-cent piece. 

— Take it, — said the Master, with a good-natured 
smile. 

— The Boy made a snatch at it and was off for the 
purpose of investing it. 

— A child naturally snaps at a thing as a dog does 
at his meat, — said the Master. — If you think of it, 
we 've all been quadrupeds. A child that can only 
crawl has all the instincts of a four-footed beast. It 
carries things in its mouth just as cats and dogs do. 
I 've seen the little brutes do it over and over again. 
I suppose a good many children would stay quadru- 
peds all their lives, if they did n't learn the trick of 
walking on their hind legs from seeing all the grown 
people walking in that way. 

— Do you accept Mr. Darwin's notions about the 
origin of the race ? — said I. 

The Master looked at me with that twinkle in his 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 97 

eye which means that he is going to parry a ques- 
tion. 

— Better stick to Blair's Chronology ; that settles 
it. Adam and Eve, created Friday, October 28th, 
B. o. 4004. You 've been in a ship for a good while, 
and here comes Mr. Darwin on deck with an armful 
of sticks and says, " Let 's build a raft, and trust our- 
selves to that." 

If your ship springs a leak, what would you do ? 

He looked me straight in the eyes for about half a 
minute. — If I heard the pumps going, I 'd look and 
see whether they were gaining on the leak or not. 
If they were gaining I 'd stay where I was. — Go and 
find out what 's the matter with that young woman. 

I had noticed that the Young Girl — the story- 
writer, our Scheherazade, as I called her — looked as 
if she had been crying or lying awake half the night. 
I found on asking her, — for she is an honest little 
body and is disposed to be confidential with me for 
some reason or other, — that she had been doing 
both. 

— And what was the matter now, I questioned her 
in a semi-paternal kind of way, as soon as I got a 
chance for a few quiet words with her. 

She was engaged to write a serial story, it seems, 
and had only got as far as the second number, and 
some critic had been jumping upon it, she said, and 
grinding his heel into it, till she could n't bear to look 
at it. He said she did not write half so well as half 

5 a 



98 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

a dozen other young women. She did n't write half 
so well as she used to write herself. She had n't any 
characters and she hadn't any incidents. Then he 
went to work to show how her story was coming out, 
— trying to anticipate everything she could make of 
it, so that her readers should have nothing to look 
forward to, and he should have credit for his sagacity 
in guessing, which was nothing so very wonderful, she 
seemed to think. Things she had merely hinted and 
left the reader to infer, he told right out in the blunt- 
est and coarsest way. It had taken all the life out 
of her, she said. It was just as if at a dinner-party 
one of the guests should take a spoonful of soup 
and get up and say to the company, *^Poor stuff, 
poor stuff ; you won't get anything better ; let 's go 
somewhere else where things are fit to eat." 

What do you read such things for, my dear? — 
said I. 

The film glistened in her eyes at the strange sound 
of those two soft words ; she had not heard such very 
often, I am afraid. 

— I know I am a foolish creature to read them, — 
she answered, — but I can't help it ; somebody always 
sends me everything that will make me wretched to 
read, and so I sit down and read it, and ache all 
over for my pains, and lie awake all night. 

— She smiled faintly as she said this, for she saw 
the sub-ridiculous side of it, but the film glittered still 
in her eyes. There are a good many real miseries in 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 99 

life that we cannot help smiling at, but they are the 
smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples. " Some- 
body always sends her everything that will make her 
wretched." Who can those creatures be who cut out 
the offensive paragraph and send it anonymously to 
us, who mail the newspaper which has the article we 
had much better not have seen, who take care that 
we shall know everything which can, by any possi- 
bility, help to make us discontented with ourselves and 
a little less light-hearted than we were before we had 
been fools enough to open their incendiary packages ? 
I don't like to say it to myself, but I cannot help 
suspecting, in this instance, the doubtful-looking per- 
sonage who sits on my left, beyond the Scarabee. I 
have some reason to think that he has made advances 
to the young girl which were not favorably received, 
to state the case in moderate terms, and it may be 
that he is taking his revenge in cutting up the poor 
girl's story. I know this very well, that some per- 
sonal pique or favoritism is at the bottom of half the 
praise and dispraise which pretend to be so very 
ingenuous and discriminating. (Of course I have 
been thinking all this time and telling you what I 
thought.) 

— What you want is encouragement, my dear, — 
said I, — I know that as well as you. I don't think 
the fellows that write such criticisms as you tell me 
of want to correct your faults. I don't mean to say 
that you can learn nothing from them, because they 



100 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

are not all fools by any means, and they will often 
pick out your weak points with a malignant sagacity, 
as a pettifogging lawyer will frequently find a real 
flaw in trying to get at everything he can quibble 
about. But is there nobody who will praise you 
generously when you do well, — nobody that will 
lend you a hand now while you want it, — or must 
they all wait until you have made yourself a name 
among strangers, and then all at once find out that 
you have something in you ? 

0, — said the girl, and the bright film gathered too 
fast for her young eyes to hold much longer, — I 
ought not to be ungrateful ! I have found the kind- 
est fi-iend in the world. Have you ever heard the 
Lady — the one that I sit next to at the table — say 
anything about me ? 

I have not really made her acquaintance, I said. 
She seems to me a little distant in her manners, and 
I have respected her pretty evident liking for keeping 
mostly to herself. 

— 0, but when you once do know her ! I don't 
believe I could write stories all the time as I do, if 
she didn't ask me up to her chamber, and let me 
read them to her. Do you know, I can make her 
laugh and cry, reading my poor stories ? And some- 
times, when I feel as if I had written out all there is 
in me, and want to lie down and go to sleep and 
never wake up except in a world where there are no 
weekly papers, — when everything goes wrong, like a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 101 

car off the track, — she takes hold and sets me on 
the rails again all right. 

— How does she go to work to help you ? 

— Whj, she listens to my stories, to begin with, 
as if she really liked to hear them. And then you 
know I am dreadfully troubled now and then with 
some of my characters, and can't think how to get 
rid of them. And she '11 say, perhaps, Don't shoot 
your villain this time, you 've shot three or four al- 
ready in the last six weeks ; let his mare stumble and 
throw him and break his neck. Or she 'U give me a 
hint about some new way for my lover to make a 
declaration. She must have had a good many offers, 
it 's my belief, for she has told me a dozen different 
ways for me to use in my stories. And whenever I read 
a story to her, she always laughs and cries in the right 
places ; and that 's such a comfort, for there are some 
people that think everything pitiable is so funny, and 
will burst out laughing when poor Rip Van Winkle 
— you 've seen Mr. Jefferson, have n't you ? — is break- 
ing your heart for you if you have one. Sometimes 
she takes a poem I have written and reads it to me 
so beautifully, that I fall in love with it, and some- 
times she sets my verses to music and sings them 
to me. 

— You have a laugh together sometimes, do you ? 

— Indeed we do. I write for what they call the 
" Gomic Department " of the paper now and then. 
If I did not get so tired of story-telling, I suppose I 



102 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

should be gayer than I am ; but as it is, we two get 

a little fun out of my comic pieces. I begin them 

If 

half-crying sometimes, but after they are done they 
amuse me. I don't suppose my comic pieces are 
very laughable ; at any rate the man who makes a 
business of writing me down says the last one I wrote 
is very melancholy reading, and that if it was only a 
little better perhaps some bereaved person might pick 
out a line or two that would do to put on a grave- 
stone. 

— Well, that is hard, I must confess. Do let me 
see those lines which excite such sad emotions. 

— Will you read them very good-naturedly? If 
you will, I will get the paper that has " Aunt Tabi- 
tha." That is the one the fault-finder said produced 
such deep depression of feeling. It was written for 
the '^ Comic Department." Perhaps it will make you 
cry, but it was n't meant to. 

— I will finish my report this time with our Sche- 
herazade's poem, hoping that any critic who deals with 
it will treat it with the courtesy due to all a young 
lady's literary efforts. 

AUNT TABITHA. 

Whatever I do, and whatever I say, 
Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way ; 
When she was a girl (forty summers ago) 
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 103 

Dear aunt ! If I only would take her advice ! 
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice 1 
And besides, I forget half the things I am told ; 
But they all will come back to me — when I am old. 

If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, 
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out ; 
She would never endure an ioi pertinent stare, — 
It is horrid^ she says, and I must n't sit there. 

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, 
But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone 5 
So I take a lad's arm, — just for safety, you know, — 
But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so. 

How wicked we are, and how good they were then ! 
They kept at arm's length those detestable men ; 
What an era of virtue she lived in ! — But stay — 
Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day ? 

If the men were so wicked, I *11 ask my papa 

How he dared to propose to my darling mamma ; 

Was he hke the rest of them ? Goodness ! Who knows ? 

And what shall / say, if a wretch should propose ? 

I am thinking if Aunt knew so little of sin, 
What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been ! 
And her grand-aunt — it scares me — how shockingly sad 
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad ! 

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can ; 

Let me perish — to rescue some wretched young man! 

Though when to the altar a victim I go, 

Aunt Tabitha '11 tell me she never did so ! 



104 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



IV. 



The Old Master has developed one quality of late 
for which I am afraid I hardly gave him credit. He 
has turned out to be an excellent listener. 

— I love to talk, — he said, — as a goose loves to 
swim. Sometimes I think it is because I am a goose. 
For I never talked much at any one time in my life 
without saying something or other I was sorry for. 

— You too ! — said I. — Now that is very odd, for 
it is an experience / have habitually. I thought you 
were rather too much of a philosopher to trouble your- 
self about such small matters as to whether you had 
said just what you meant to or not ; especially as 
you know that the person you talk to does not re- 
member a word of what you said the next morning, 
but is thinking, it is much more likely, of what she 
said, or how her new dress looked, or some other 
body's new dress which made hers look as if it had 
been patched together from the leaves of last Novem- 
ber. That 's what she 's probably thinking about. 

— She ! — said the Master, with a look which it 
would take at least half a page to explain to the entire 
satisfaction of thoughtful readers of both sexes. 

— I paid the respect due to that most significant 
monosyllable, which, as the old Rabbi spoke it, with 
its targum of tone and expression, was not to be an- 
swered flippantly, but soberly, advisedly, and after a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 105 

pause long enough for it to unfold its meaning in the 
listener's mind.. For there are short single words (all 
the world remembers Rachel's Helas !) which are like 
those Japanese toys that look like nothing of any sig- 
nificance as you throw them on the water, but which 
after a little tima open out into various strange and 
unexpected figures, and then you find that each little 
shred had a complicated story to tell of itself. 

— Yes, — said I, at the close of this silent interval, 
during which the monosyllable had been opening out 
its meanings, — She. When I think of talking, it is 
of course with a woman. For talking at its best being 
an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality 
of receptiveness ; and where will you find this but in 
woman ? 

The Master laughed a pleasant little laugh, — not a 
harsh, sarcastic one, but playful, and tempered by so 
kind a look that it seemed as if every wrinkled line 
about his old eyes repeated, " God bless you," as the 
tracings on the walls of the Alhambra repeat a sen- 
tence of the Koran. 

I said nothing, but looked the question, What are 
you laughing at ? 

— Why, I laughed because I could n't help saying 
to myself that a woman whose mind was taken up 
with thinking how she looked, and how her pretty 
neighbor looked, would n't have a great deal of 
thought to spare for all your fine discourse. 

— Come, now, — said I, — a man who contradicts 

5* 



106 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

himself in the course of two minutes must have a 
screw loose in his mental machinery. I never feel 
afraid that such a thing can happen to me, though it 
happens often enough when I turn a thought over 
suddenly, as you did that five-cent piece the other day, 
that it reads differently on its two sides. What I 
meant to say is something like this. A woman, not- 
withstanding she is the best of listeners, knows her 
business, and it is a woman's business to please. I 
don't say that it is not her business to vote, but I do 
say that the woman who does not please is a false note 
in the harmonies of nature. She may not have youth, 
or beauty, or even manner ; but she must have some- 
thing in her voice or expression, or both, which it 
makes you feel better disposed towards your race to 
look at or listen to. She knows that as well as we 
do ; and her first question after you have been talking 
your soul into her consciousness is, Did / please ? A 
woman never forgets her sex. She would rather talk 
with a man than an angel, any day. 

— This frightful speech of mine reached the ear of 
our Scheherazade, who said that it was perfectly 
shocking and that I deserved to be shown up as the 
outlaw in one of her bandit stories. 

Hush, my dear, — said the Lady, — you will have 
to bring John Milton into your story with our friend 
there, if you punish everybody who says naughty 
things like that. Send the little boy up to my cham- 
ber for Paradise Lost, if you please. He will find it 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 107 

lying on my table. The little old volume, — he can't 
mistake it. 

So the girl called That Boy round and gave him the 
message ; I don't know why she should give it, but 
she did, and the Lady helped her out with a word or 
two. 

The little volume — its cover protected with soft 
white leather from a long kid glove, evidently suggest- 
ing the brilliant assemblies of the days when friends 
and fortune smiled — came presently and the Lady 
opened it. — You may read that, if you like, — she 
said, — it may show you that our friend is to be pillo- 
ried in good company. 

The young girl ran her eye along the passage the 
Lady pointed out, blushed, laughed, and slapped the 
book down as though she would have liked to box the 
ears of Mr. John Milton, if he had been a contempo- 
rary and fellow-contributor to the Weekly Bucket. — I 
won't touch the thing, — she said. — He was a horrid 
man to talk so ; and he had as many wives as Blue- 
Beard. 

— Fair play, — said the Master. — Bring me the 
book, my little fractional superfluity, — I mean you, 
my nursling, — my boy, if that suits your small High- 
ness better. 

The Boy brought the book. 

The old Master, not unfamiliar with the great epic, 
opened pretty nearly to the place, and very soon 
found the passage. He read aloud with grand scho- 



108 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

lastic intonation and in a deep voice that silenced the 
table as if a prophet had just uttered Thus saith the 
Lord : — 

" So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed 
Entering on studious thoughts abstruse ; which Eve 
Perceiving — " 

went to water her geraniums, to make a short story of 
it, and left the two " conversationists/' to wit, the an- 
gel Raphael and the gentleman, — there was but one 
gentleman in society then, you know, — to talk it out, 

" Yet went she not, as not with such discourse 
Delighted, or not capable her ear 
Of what was high ; such pleasure she reserved, 
Adam relating, she sole auditress ; 
Her husband the relater she preferred 
Before the angel, and of him to ask 
Chose rather ; he she knew would intermix 
Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute 
With conjugal caresses : from his lips 
Not words alone pleased her." 

Everybody laughed, except the Capitalist, who was 
a little hard of hearing, and the Scarabee, whose life 
was too earnest for demonstrations of that kind. He 
had his eyes fixed on the volume, however, with eager 
interest. 

— The p'int 's carried, — said the Member of the 
Haouse. 

Will you let me look at that book a single minute ? 
— said the Scarabee. I passed it to him, wondering 
what in the world he wanted of Paradise Lost. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 109 

Dermestes lardarius, — he said, pointing to a. place 
where the edge of one side of the outer cover had been 
slightly tasted by some insect. — Very fond of leather 
while they 're in the larva state. 

— Damage the goods as bad as mice, — said the 
Salesman. 

— Eat half the binding off Folio 67, — said the 
Register of Deeds. Something did, anyhow, and it 
was n't mice. Found the shelf covered with little 
hairy cases belonging to something or other that had 
no business there. 

Skins of the Dermestes lardarius, — said the Scara- 
bee, — you can always tell them by those brown hairy 
coats. That 's the name to give them. 

— What good does it do to give 'em a name after 
they 've eat the binding off my folios ? — asked the 
Register of Deeds. 

The Scarabee had too much respect for science to 
answer such a question as that ; and the book, having 
served its purposes, was passed back to the Lady. 

I return to the previous question, — said I, — if our 
friend the Member of the House of Representatives 
will allow me to borrow the phrase. Womanly women 
are very kindly critics, except to themselves and now 
and then to their own sex. The less there is of sex 
about a woman, the more she is to be dreaded. But 
take a real woman at her best moment, — well dressed 
enough to be pleased with herself, not so resplendent 
as to be a show and a sensation, with those varied out- 



110 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

side influences which set vibrating the harmonic notes 
of her nature stirring in the air about her, — and what 
has social life to compare with one of those vital inter- 
changes of thought and feeling with her that make an 
hour memorable ? What can equal her tact, her 
delicacy, her subtlety of apprehension, her quickness 
to feel the changes of temperature as the warm and 
cool currents of talk blow by turns ? At one moment 
she is microscopically intellectual, critical, scrupulous 
in judgment as an analyst's balance, and the next as 
sympathetic as the open rose that sweetens the wind 
from whatever quarter it finds its way to her bosom. 
It is in the hospitable soul of a woman that a man for- 
gets he is a stranger, and so becomes natural and 
truthful, at the same time that he is mesmerized by all 
those divine differences which make her a mystery and 
a bewilderment to — 

If you fire your popgun at me, you little chimpanzee, 
I will stick a pin right through the middle of you and 
put you into one of this gentleman's beetle-cases ! 

I caught the imp that time, but what started him 
was more than I could guess. It is rather hard that 
this spoiled child should spoil such a sentence as that 
was going to be ; but the wind shifted all at once, and 
the talk had to come round on another tack, or at 
least fall off" a point or two from its course. 

— 1 11 tell you who I think are the best talkers in 
all probability, — said I to the Master, who, as I 
mentioned, was developing interesting talent as a lis- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. Ill 

tener, — poets who never write verses. And there are 
a good many more of these than it would seem at first 
sight. I think you may say every young lover is a 
poet, to begin with. I don't mean either that all 
young lovers are good talkers, — they have an elo- 
quence all their own when they are with the beloved 
object, no doubt, emphasized after the fashion the 
solemn bard of Paradise refers to with such delicious 
humor in the passage we just heard, — but a little talk 
goes a good way in most of these cooing matches, and 
it would n't do to report them too literally. IVhat I 
mean is, that a man with the gift of musical and im- 
passioned phrase (and love often lends that to a young 
person for a while), who "wreaks" it, to borrow 
Byron's word, on conversation as the natural outlet of 
his sensibilities and spiritual activities, is likely to talk 
better than the poet, who plays on the instrument of 
verse. A great pianist or violinist is rarely a great 
singer. To write a poem is to expend the vital force 
which would have made one brilliant for an hour or 
two, and to expend it on an instrument with more 
pipes, reeds, keys, stops, and pedals than the Great 
Organ that shakes New England every time it is 
played in full blast. 

Do you mean that it is hard work to write a poem ? 
— said the old Master. — I had an idea that a poem 
wrote itself, as it were, very often ; that it came by in- 
flux, without voluntary effort ; indeed, you have spoken 
of it as an inspiration rather than a result of volition. 



112 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— Did you ever see a great ballet-dancer? — I 
asked him. 

— I have seen Taglioni, — he answered. — She used 
to take her steps rather prettily. I have seen the 
woman that danced the cap-stone on to Bunker Hill 
Monument, as Orpheus moved the rocks by music, — 
the Elssler woman, — Fanny Elssler. She would 
dance you a rigadoon or cut a pigeon's wing for you 
very respectably. 

(Confound this old college book-worm, — he has 
seen everything !) 

Well, did these two ladies dance as if it was hard 
work to them ? 

— Why no, I should say they danced as if they 
liked it and could n't help dancing ; they looked as 
if they felt so "corky" it was hard to keep them 
down. 

— And yet they had been through such work to get 
their limbs strong and flexible and obedient, that a 
cart-horse lives an easy life compared to theirs while 
they were in training. 

— The Master cut in just here — I had sprung the 
trap of a reminiscence. 

— When I was a boy, — he said, — some of the 
mothers in our small town, who meant that their 
children should know what was what as well as other 
people's children, laid their heads together and got a 
dancing-master to come out from the city and give in- 
struction at a few dollars a quarter to the young folks 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 113 

of condition in the village. Some of their husbands 
were ministers and some were deacons, but the moth- 
ers knew what they were about, and they did n't see 
any reason why ministers' and deacons' wives' children 
should n't have as easy manners as the sons and 
daughters of Belial. So, as I tell you, they got a dan- 
cing-master to come out to our place, — a man of good 
repute, a most respectable man, — madam (to the 
Landlady), you must remember the worthy old citizen, 
in his advanced age, going about the streets, a most 
gentlemanly bundle of infirmities, — only he always 
cocked his hat a little too much on one side, as they 
do here and there along the Connecticut River, and 
sometimes on our city sidewalks, when they 've got a 
new beaver ; they got him, I say, to give us boys and 
girls lessons in dancing and deportment. He was as 
gray and as lively as a squirrel, as I remember him, 
and used to spring up in the air and " cross his feet," 
as we called it, three times before he came down. 
Well, at the end of each term there was what they 
called an " exhibition ball," in which the scholars danced 
cotiUons and country-dances ; also something called a 
" gavotte," and I think one or more walked a minuet. 
But all this is not what I wanted to say. At this 
exhibition ball he used to bring out a number of hoops 
wreathed with roses, of the perennial kind, by the aid 
of which a number of amazingly complicated and 
startling evolutions were exhibited ; and also his two 
daughters, who figured largely in these evolutions, and 



114 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

whose wonderfal performances to us, who had not 
seen Miss Taglioni or Miss Elssler, were something 
quite wonderful, in fact, surpassing the natural possi- 
bilities of human beings. Their extraordinary powers 
were, however, accounted for by the following expla- 
nation, which was accepted in the school as entirely 
satisfactory. A certain little bone in the ankles of 
each of these young girls had been broken intentionally, 
secundum artem, at a very early age, and thus they had 
been fitted to accomplish these surprising feats which 
threw the achievements of the children who were left 
in the condition of the natural man into ignominious 
shadow. 

— Thank you, — said I, — you have helped out my 
illustration so as to make it better than I expected. 
Let me begin again. Every poem that is worthy of 
the name, no matter how easily it seems to be \ATitten, 
represents a great amount of vital force expended at 
some time or other. When you find a beach strewed 
with the shells and other spoils that belonged once to 
the deep sea, you know the tide has been there, and 
that the winds and waves have wrestled over its naked 
sands. And so, if I find a poem stranded in my soul 
and have nothing to do but seize it as a wrecker 
carries off the treasure he finds cast ashore, I know I 
have paid at some time for that poem with some 
inward commotion, were it only an excess of enjoyment, 
which has used up just so much of my vital capital. 
But besides all the impressions that furnished the 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 115 

stuff of the poem, there has been hard work to get the 
management of that wonderful instrument I spoke of, 
— the great organ, language. An artist that works in 
marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, 
but the man who moulds his thought in verse, has 
to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody's use, 
and glorify them by his handling. I don't know that 
you must break any bones in a poet's mechanism be- 
fore his thought can dance in rhythm, but read your 
Milton and see what training, what patient labor, it 
took before he could shape our common speech into 
his majestic harmonies. 

It is rather singular, but the same kind of thing has 
happened to me not very rarely before, as I suppose 
it has to most persons, that just when I happened to 
be thinking about poets and their conditions, this 
very morning, I saw a paragraph or two from a for- 
eign paper which is apt to be sharp, if not cynical, 
relating to the same matter. I can't help it ; I want 
to have my talk about it, and if I say the same things 
that writer did, somebody else can have the satisfac- 
tion of saying I stole them all. 

[I thought the person whom I have called hypo- 
thetically the Man of Letters changed color a little 
and betrayed a certain awkward consciousness that 
some of us were looking at him or thinking of him ; 
but I am a little suspicious about him and may do 
him wrong.] 

That poets are treated as privileged persons by their 



116 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

admirers and the educated public can hardly be dis- 
puted. That they consider themselves so there is no 
doubt whatever. On the whole, I do not know so 
easy a way of shirking all the civic and social and 
domestic duties, as to settle it in one's mind that 
one is a poet. I have, therefore, taken great pains 
to advise other persons laboring under the impression 
that they were gifted beings, destined to soar in the 
atmosphere of song above the vulgar realities of earth, 
not to neglect any homely duty under the influence 
of that impression. The number of these persons is 
so great that if they were suffered to indulge their 
prejudice against every-day duties and labors, it would 
be a serious loss to the productive industry of the 
country. My skirts are clear (so far as other people 
are concerned) of countenancing that form of intel- 
lectual opium-eating in which rhyme takes the place 
of the narcotic. But what are you going to do when 
you find John Keats an apprentice to a surgeon or 
apothecary ? Is n't it rather better to get another 
boy to sweep out the shop and shake out the pow- 
ders and stir up the mixtures, and leave him undis- 
turbed to write his Ode on a Grecian Urn or to a 
Nightingale? yes, the critic I have referred to 
would say, if he is John Keats ; but not if he is 
of a much lower grade, even though he be genuine, 
what there is of him. But tlie trouble is, the sensi- 
tive persons who belong to the lower grades of the 
poetical hierarchy do not know their own poetical 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 117 

limitations, while they do feel a natural unfitness and 
disinclination for many pursuits which young persons 
of the average balance of faculties take to pleasantly 
enough. What is forgotten is this, that every real 
poet, even of the humblest grade, is an artist, Now 
I venture to say that any painter or sculptor of real 
genius, though he may do nothing more than paint 
flowers and fruit, or carve cameos, is considered a 
privileged person. It is recognized perfectly that to 
get his best work he must be insured the freedom 
from disturbances which the creative power absolutely 
demands, more absolutely perhaps in these slighter 
artists than in the great masters. His nerves must 
be steady for him to finish a rose-leaf or the fold of a 
nymph's drapery in his best manner ; and they will be 
unsteadied if he has to perform the honest drudgery 
which another can do for him quite as well. 
And it is just so with the poet, though he were only 
finishing an epigram ; you must no more meddle 
roughly mth him than you would shake a bottle of 
Chambertin and expect the " sunset glow " to redden 
your glass unclouded. On the other hand, it may 
be said that poetry is not an article of prime necessity, 
and potatoes are. There is a disposition in many 
persons just now to deny the poet his benefit of 
clergy, and to hold him no better than other people. 
Perhaps he is not, perhaps he is not so good, half 
the time ; but he is a luxury, and if you want him 
you must pay for him, by not trying to make a drudge 



118 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

of him while he is all his lifetime struggling with the 
chills and heats of his artistic intermittent fever. 

There may have been some lesser interruptions 
during the talk I have reported as if it was a set 
speech^ but this was the drift of what I said and 
should have said if the other man, in the Review I 
referred to, had not seen fit to meddle with the sub- 
ject, as some fellow always does, just about the time 
when I am going to say something about it. The 
Old Master listened beautifully, except for cutting in 
once, as I told you he did. But now he had held in 
as long as it was in his nature to contain himself, and 
must have his say or go off in an apoplexy, or explode 
in some way. 

— I think you 're right about the poets, — he said. 
— They are to common folks what repeaters are to 
ordinary watches. They carry music in their inside 
arrangements, but they want to be handled carefully 
or you put them out of order. And perhaps you 
must n't expect them to be quite as good timekeepers 
as the professional chronometer watches that make 
a specialty of being exact within a few seconds a 
month. They think too much of themselves. So 
does everybody that considers himself as having a 
right to fall back on what he calls his idiosyncrasy. 
Yet a man has such a right, and it is no easy thing 
to adjust the private claim to the fair public demand 
on him. Suppose you are subject to tic douloureux^ 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 119 

for instance. Every now and then a tiger that no- 
body can see catches one side of your face between 
his jaws and holds on till he is tired and lets go. 
Some concession must be made to you on that score, 
as everybody can see. It is fair to give you a seat 
that is not in the draught, and your friends ought not 
to find fault with you if you do not care to join a 
party that is going on a sleigh-ride. Now take a poet 
like Cowper. He had a mental neuralgia, a great 
deal worse in many respects than tic douloureux con- 
fined to ^the face. It was well that he was sheltered 
and relieved, by the cares of kind friends, especially 
those good women, from as many of the burdens of 
life, as they could lift off from him. I am fair to the 
poets, — don't you agree that I am ? 

^Vliy, yes, — I said, — you have stated the case 
fairly enough, a good deal as I should have put it 
myself. 

— Now, then, — the Master continued, — I '11 tell 
you what is necessary to all these artistic idiosyn- 
crasies to bring them into good square human rela- 
tions outside of the special province where their ways 
differ from those of other people. I am going to illus- 
trate what I mean by a comparison. I dont know, by 
the way, but you would be disposed to think and per- 
haps call me a wine-bibber on the strength of the free- 
dom with which I deal with that fluid for the pur- 
poses of illustration. But I make mighty little use of 
it, except as it furnishes me an image now and then, 



120 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

as it did, for that matter, to the Disciples and their 

Master. In my younger days they used to bring up 

the famous old wines, the White-top, the Juno, the 

Eclipse, the Essex Junior, and the rest, in their 

old cobwebbed, dusty bottles. The resurrection of 

one of these old sepulchred dignitaries had something 

of solemnity about it ; it was like the disinterment of 

a king ; the bringing to" light of the Royal Martyr 

King Charles I., for instance, that Sir Henry Halford 

gave such an interesting account of. And the bottle 

seemed to inspire a personal respect ; it was wrapped 

in a napkin and borne tenderly and reverently round 

to the guests, and sometimes a dead silence went 

before the first gush of its amber flood, and 

" The boldest held his breath 
For a time." 

But nowadays the precious juice of a long-dead vin- 
tage is transferred carefully into a cut-glass decanter, 
and stands side by side with the sherry from a corner 
grocery, which looks just as bright and apparently 
thinks just as well of itself. The old historic Madeiras, 
which have warmed the periods of our famous rheto- 
ricians of the past and burned in the impassioned elo- 
quence of our earlier political demigods, have nothing 
to mark them externally but a bit of thread, it may be, 
round the neck of the decanter, or a slip of ribbon, 
pink on one of them and blue on another. 

Go to a London club, — perhaps I might find some- 
thing nearer home that would serve my turn, — but 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 121 

go to a London club, and there you will see the celeb- 
rities all looking alike modern, all decanted off from 
their historic antecedents and their costume of circum- 
stance into the every-day aspect of the gentleman of 
common cultivated society. That is Sir Coeur de Lion 
Plantagenet in the mutton-chop whiskers and the plain 
gray suit ; there is the Laureate in a frock-coat like 
your own, and the leader of the House of Commons in 
a necktie you do not envy. That is the kind of thing 
you want to take the nonsense out of you. If you are 
not decanted off from yourself every few days or weeks, 
you will think it sacrilege to brush a cobweb from your 
cork by and by. little fool, that has published a lit- 
tle book full of little poems or other sputtering tokens 
of an uneasy condition, how I love you for the one soft 
nerve of special sensibility that runs through your ex- 
iguous organism, and the one phosphorescent particle 
in your unilluminated intelligence ! But if you don't 
leave your spun-sugar confectionery business once in a 
while, and come out among lusty men, — the bristly, 
pachydermatous fellows that hew out the highways 
for the material progress of society, and the broad- 
shouldered, out-of-door men that fight for the great 
prizes of life, — you will come to think that the spun- 
sugar business is the chief end of man, and begin to 
feel and look as if you believed yourself as much above 
common people as that personage of whom Tourgu6- 
neff says that "he had the air of his own statue 
erected by national subscription," 

6 



122 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— The Master paused and fell into a deep thinking 
fit, as he does sometimes. He had had his own say, 
it is true, but he had established his character as a lis- 
tener to my own perfect satisfaction, for I, too, was 

conscious of having preached with a certain prolixity. 

* 

— I am always troubled when I think of my very 
limited mathematical capacities. It seems as if every 
well-organized mind should be able to handle numbers 
and quantities through their symbols to an indefinite 
extent ; and yet, I am puzzled by what seems to a 
clever boy with a turn for calculation as plain as 
counting his fingers. I don't think any man feels well 
grounded in knowledge unless he has a good basis of 
mathematical certainties, and knows how to deal with 
them and apply them to every branch of knowledge 
where they can come in to advantage. 

Our young Astronomer is known for his mathemati- 
cal ability, and I asked him what he thought was the 
difficulty in the minds that are weak in that particular 
direction, while they may be of remarkable force in 
other provinces of thought, as is notoriously the case 
with some men of great distinction in science. 

The young man smiled and wrote a few letters and 
symbols on a piece of paper. — Can you see through 
that at once ? — he said. 

I puzzled over it for some minutes and gave it up. 

— He said, as I returned it to him. You have heard 
military men say that such a person had an eye foi 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 123 

country, have n't you ? One man will note all the 
landmarks, keep the points of compass in his head, ob- 
serve how the streams run, in short, carry a map in his 
brain of any region that he has marched or galloped 
through. Another man takes no note of any of these 
things ; always follows somebody else's lead when he 
can, and gets lost if he is left to himself ; a mere owl 
in daylight. Just so some men have an eye for an 
equation, and would read at sight the one that you 
puzzled over. It is told of Sir Isaac Newton that he 
required no demonstration of the propositions in Eu- 
clid's Geometry, but as soon as he had read the enun- 
ciation the solution or answer was plain at once. The 
power may be cultivated, but I think it is to a great 
degree a natural gift, as is the eye for color, as is the 
ear for music. 

— I think I could read equations readily enough, — 
I said, — if I could only keep my attention fixed on 
them ; and I think I could keep my attention on them 
if I were imprisoned in a thinking-cell, such as the 
Creative Intelligence shapes for its studio when at its 
divinest work. 

The young man's lustrous eyes opened very widely 
as he asked me to explain what I meant. 

— What is the Creator's divinest work ? — I asked. 

— Is there anything more divine than the sun ; 
than a sun with its planets revolving about it, warm- 
ing them, lighting them, and giving conscious life to 
the beings that move on them ? 



124 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— You agree, then, that conscious life is the grand 
aim and end of all this vast mechanism. Without life 
that could feel and enjoy, the splendors and creative 
energy would all be thrown away. You know Har- 
vey's saying, omnia animalia ex ovo, — all animals 
come from an egg. You ought to know it, for the 
great controversy going on about spontaneous genera- 
tion has brought it into special prominence lately. 
Well, then, the ovum, the egg, is, to speak in human 
phrase, the Creator's more private and sacred studio, 
for his magnum opus. Kow, look at a hen's egg, which 
is a convenient one to study, because it is large enough 
and built solidly enough to look at and handle easily. 
That would be the form I would choose for my think- 
ing-cell. Build me an oval with smooth, translucent 
walls, and put me in the centre of it with N^ewton's 
" Principia " or Kant's " Kritik," and I think I shall 
develop " an eye for an equation," as you call it, and a 
capacity for an abstraction. 

But do tell me, — said the Astronomer, a little in- 
credulously, — what there is in that particular form 
which is going to help you to be a mathematician or a 
metaphysician ? 

— It is n't help I want, it is removing hinderances. 
I don't want to see anything to draw off my attention. 
I don't want a cornice, or an angle, or anything but a 
containing curve. I want diffused light and no single 
liuninous centre to fix my eye, and so distract my mind 
from its one object of contemplation. The metaphysics 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 125 

of attention have hardly been sounded to their depths. 
The mere fixing the look on any single object for a 
long time may produce very strange effects. Gibbon's 
vrell-known story of the monks of Mount Athos and 
their contemplative practice is often laughed over, but 
it has a meaning. They were to shut the door of the 
cell, recline the beard and chin on the breast, and con- 
template the abdominal centre. "At first all will be 
dark and comfortless ; but if you persevere day and 
night, you will feel an ineffable joy ; and no sooner has 
the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is in- 
volved in a mystic and ethereal light." And Mr. Braid 
produces absolute ansesthesia, so that surgical opera- 
tions can be performed without suffering to the patient, 
only by making him fix his eyes and his mind on a 
single object ; and N^ewton is said to have said, as you 
remember, " I keep the subject constantly before me, 
and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little 
and little into a full and clear light." These are diff'er- 
ent, but certainly very wonderful, instances of what 
can be done by attention. But now suppose that your 
mind is in its nature discursive, erratic, subject to elec- 
tric attractions and repulsions, volage ; it may be im- 
possible for you to compel your attention except by 
taking away all external disturbances. I think the poets 
have an advantage and a disadvantage as compared 
with the steadier-going people. Life is so vivid to the 
poet, that he is too eager to seize and exhaust its mul- 
titudinous impressions. Like Sindbad in the valley of 



126 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

precious stones, he wants to fill his pockets with dia^ 
monds, but, lo ! there is a great ruby like a setting sun 
in its glory, and a sapphire that, like Bryant's blue 
gentian, seems to have dropped from the cerulean 
walls of heaven, and a nest of pearls that look as if 
they might be unhatched angel's eggs, and so he hard- 
ly knows what to seize, and tries for too many, and 
comes out of the enchanted valley with more gems 
than he can carry, and those that he lets fall by the 
wayside we call his poems. You may change the im- 
age a thousand ways to show you how hard it is to 
make a mathematician or a logician out of a poet. 
He carries the tropics with him wherever he goes ; he 
is in the true sense jilius naturce, and Nature tempts 
him, as she tempts a child walking through a garden 
where all the finest fruits are hanging over him and 
dropping round him, where 

The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon (his) mouth do crush their wine, 
The nectarine and curious peach, 
Into (his) hands themselves do reach ; 

and he takes a bite out of the sunny side of this and 
the other, and, ever stimulated and never satisfied, is 
hurried through the garden, and, before he knows it, 
finds himself at an iron gate which opens outward, and 
leaves the place he knows and loves — 

— For one he will perhaps soon learn to love and 
know better, — said the Master. — But I can help 
you out with another comparison^ not quite so poetical 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 127 

as yours. Why did not you think of a railway-station, 
where the cars stop five minutes for refreshments ? 
Is n't that a picture of the poet's hungry and hurried 
feast at the banquet of life ? The traveller flings him- 
self on the bewildering miscellany of delicacies spread 
before him, the various tempting forms of ambrosia 
and seducing draughts of nectar, with the same eager 
hurry and restless ardor that you describe in the poet. 
Dear me ! If it was n't for All aboard ! that sum- 
mons of the deaf conductor which tears one away from 
his half-finished sponge-cake and coffee, how I, who 
do not call myself a poet, but only a questioner, 
should have enjoyed a good long stop — say a couple 
of thousand years — at this way-station on the great 
railroad leading to the unknown terminus ! 

— You say you are not a poet, — I said, after a lit- 
tle pause, in which I suppose both of us were thinking 
where the great railroad would land us after carrying 
us into the dark tunnel, the farther end of which no 
man has seen and taken a return train to bring us 
news about it, — you say you are not a poet, and yet 
it seems to me you have some of the elements which 
go to make one. 

— I don't think you mean to flatter me, — the Mas- 
ter answered, — and, what is more, for I am not 
afraid to be honest with you, I don't think you do 
flatter me. I have taken the inventory of my faculties 
as calmly as if I was an appraiser. I have some of 
the qualities, perhaps I may say many of the qualities, 



128 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

that make a man a poet, and yet I am not one. And 
in the course of a pretty wide experience of men — 
and women — (the Master sighed, I thought, but per- 
haps I was mistaken) — I have met a good many 
poets who were not rhymesters and a good many 
rhymesters who were not poets. So I am only one of 
the Voiceless, that I remember one of you singers had 
some verses about. I think there is a little music in 
me, but it has not found a voice, and it never will. 
If I should confess the truth, there is no mere earthly 
immortality that I envy so much as the poet's. If 
your name is to live at all, it is so much more to have it 
live in people's hearts than only in their brains ! I don't 
know that one's eyes fill with tears when he thinks of 
the famous inventor of logarithms, but a song of 
Burns's or a hymn of Charles Wesley's goes straight 
to your heart, and you can't help loving both of them, 
the sinner as well as the saint. The works of other 
men live, but their personality dies out of their labors ; 
the poet, who reproduces himself in his creation, as no 
other artist does or can, goes down to posterity with 
all his personality blended with whatever is imperisha- 
ble in his song. We see nothing of the bees that 
built the honeycomb and stored it with its sweets, but 
we can trace the veining in the wings of insects that 
flitted through the forests which are now coal-beds, 
kept unchanging in the amber that holds them ; and 
so the passion of Sappho, the tenderness of Simonides, 
the purity of holy George Herbert, the lofty contem- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 129 

plativeness of James Shirley, are before us to-day as if 
they were living, in a few tears of amber verse. It 
seems, when one reads, 

" Sweet day ! so cool, so calm, so bright," 
or, 

" The glories of our birth and state," 

as if it were not a very difficult matter to gain immor- 
tality, — such an immortality at least as a perishable 
language can give. A single lyric is enough, if one 
can only find in his soul and finish in his intellect one 
of those jewels fit to sparkle " on the stretched fore- 
finger of all time." A coin, a ring, a string of verses. 
These last, and hardly anything else does. Every cen- 
tury is an overloaded ship that must sink at last with 
most of its cargo. The small portion of its crew that 
get on board the new vessel which takes them off 
don't pretend to save a great many of the bulky arti- 
cles. But they must not and will not leave behind 
the hereditary jewels of the race ; and if you have 
found and cut a diamond, were it only a spark with a 
single polished facet, it will stand a better chance of 
being saved fi:'om the wreck than anything, no matter 
what, that wants much room for stowage. 

The pyramids last, it is true, but most of them have 
forgotten their builders' names. But the ring of Thoth- 
mes III., who reigned some fourteen hundred years 
before our era, before Homer sang, before the Argo- 
nauts sailed, before Troy was built, is in the possession 
of Lord Ashburnham, and proclaims the name of the 

6 * I 



130 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

monarch who wore it more than three thousand years 
ago. The gold coins with the head of Alexander the 
Great are some of them so fresh one might think they 
were newer than much of the silver currency we were 
lately handling. As we have been quoting from the 
poets this morning, I will follow the precedent, and 
give some lines from an epistle of Pope to Addison 
after the latter had written, but not yet published, his 
Dialogue on Medals. Some of these lines have been 
lingering in my memory for a great many years, but I 
looked at the original the other day and was so pleased 
with them that I got them by heart. I think you will 
say they are singularly pointed and elegant. 

" Ambition sighed ; she found it vain to trust 
The faithless column and the crumbling bust : 
Huge moles, whose shadows stretched from shore to shore, 
Their ruins perished, and their place no more ! 
Convinced, she now contracts her vast design, 
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin. 
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps, 
Beneath her palm here sad Judsea weeps ; 
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, 
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine ; 
A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled. 
And little eagles wave their wings in gold." 

It is the same thing in literature. Write half a dozen 
folios full of other people's ideas (as all folios are 
pretty sure to be), and you serve as ballast to the low- 
er shelves of a library, about as like to be disturbed as 
the kentledge in the hold of a ship. Write a story, or 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 131 

a dozen stories, and your book will be in demand 
like an oyster while it is freshly opened, and after 

that . The highways of literature are spread over 

with the shells of dead novels, each of which has been 
swallowed at a mouthful by the public, and is done 
with. But write a volume of poems. No matter if 
they are aU bad but one, if that one is very good. It 
will carry your name down to posterity like the ring 
of Thothmes, like the coin of Alexander. I don't sup- 
pose one would care a great deal about it a hundred 
or a thousand years after he is dead, but I don't feel 
quite sure. It seems as if, even in heaven, King David 
might remember " The Lord is my Shepherd " with a 
certain twinge of earthly pleasure. But we don't 
know, we don't know. 

— What in the world can have become of That 
Boy and his popgun while all this somewhat ex- 
tended sermonizing was going on ? I don't wonder 
you ask, beloved Reader, and I suppose I must tell 
you how we got on so long without interruption. 
Well, the plain truth is, the youngster was contem- 
plating his gastric centre, like the monks of Mount 
Athos, but in a less happy state of mind than those 
tranquil recluses, in consequence of indulgence in the 
heterogeneous assortment of luxuries procured with 
the five-cent piece given him by the kind-hearted old 
Master. But you need not think I am going to tell 
you every time his popgun goes off, making a Selah of 



132 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

him whenever I want to change the subject. Some- 
times he was ill-timed in his artillery practice and 
ignominiously rebuked, sometimes he was harmlessly 
playftd and nobody minded him, but every now and 
then he came in so apropos, that I am morally certain 
he gets a hint from somebody who watches the course 
of the conversation, and means through him to have a 
hand in it and stop any of us when we are getting 
prosy. But in consequence of That Boy's indiscretion, 
we were without a check upon our expansiveness, and 
ran on in the way you have observed and may be dis- 
posed to find fault with. 

One other thing the Master said before we left the 
table, after our long talk of that day. 

— I have been tempted sometimes, — said he, — to 
envy the immediate triumphs of the singer. He 
enjoys all that praise can do for him and at the very 
moment of exerting his talent. And the singing 
women ! Once in a while, in the course of my life, I 
have found myself in the midst of a tulip-bed of full- 
dressed, handsome women in all their glory, and when 
some one among them has shaken her gauzy wings, 
and sat down before the piano, and then, only giving 
the keys a soft touch now and then to support her 
voice, has warbled some sweet, sad melody intertwined 
with the longings or regrets of some tender-hearted 
poet, it has seemed to me that so to hush the rustling 
of the silks and silence the babble of the buds, as 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 133 

they call the chicks of a new season, and light up the 
flame of romance in cold hearts, in desolate ones, in 
old burnt-out ones, — like mine, I was going to say, 
but I won't, for it is n't so, and you may laugh to hear 
me say it is n't so, if you like, — was perhaps better 
than to be remembered a few hundred years by a 
few perfect stanzas, when your gravestone is standing 
aslant, and your name is covered over with a lichen as 
big as a militia colonel's- cockade, and nobody knows 
or cares enough about you to scrape it off and set the 
tipsy old slate-stone upright again. 

— I said nothing in reply to this, for I was thinking 
of a sweet singer to whose voice I had listened in its 
first freshness, and which is now only an echo in my 
memory. If any reader of the periodical in which 
these conversations are recorded can remember so far 
back as the first year of its publication, he will find 
among the papers contributed by a friend not yet 
wholly forgotten a few verses, lively enough in their 
way, headed " The Boys." The sweet singer was one 
of this company of college classmates, the constancy 
of whose friendship deserves a better tribute than the 
annual offerings, kindly meant as they are, which for 
many years have not been wanting at their social 
gatherings. The small company counts many noted 
personages on its list, as is well known to those who 
are interested in such local matters, but it is not known 
that every fifth man of the whole number now living 
is more or less of a poet, — using that word with a 



134 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

generous breadth of significance. But it should seem 
that the divine gift it implies is more freely dispensed 
than some others, for while there are (or were, for one 
has taken his Last Degree) eight musical quills, there 
was but one pair of lips which could claim any special 
consecration to vocal melody. Not that one should 
undervalue the half-recitative of doubtful barytones, or 
the brilliant escapades of slightly unmanageable falset- 
tos, or the concentrated efforts of the proprietors of two 
or three effective notes, who may be observed lying in 
wait for them, and coming down on them with all 
their might, and the look on their countenances of " I 
too am a singer." But the voice that led all, and that 
all loved to listen to, the voice that was at once full, 
rich, sweet, penetrating, expressive, whose ample over- 
flow drowned all the imperfections and made up for 
aU the shortcomings of the others, is silent henceforth 
forevermore for all earthly listeners. 

And these were the lines that one of '^ The Boys," 
as they have always called themselves for ever so many 
years, read at the first meeting after the voice which 
had never failed them was hushed in the stillness of 
death. 

J. A. 

1871. 

One memory trembles on our lips : 

It throbs in every breast ; 
In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, 

The shadow stands confessed. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 135 

O silent voice, that cheered so long 

Our manhood's marching day, 
Without thy breath of heavenly song, 

How weary seems the way ! 

Vain every pictured phrase to tell 

Our sorrowing hearts' desire ; 
The shattered harp, the broken shell, 

The silent unstrung lyre ; 

For youth was round us while he sang ; 

It glowed in every tone ; 
With bridal chimes the echoes rang, 

And made the past our own. 

O blissful dream ! Our nursery joys 

We know must have an end, 
But love and friendship's broken toys 

May God's good angels mend ! 

The cheering smile, the voice of mirth 

And laughter's gay surprise 
That please the children born of earth, 

Why deem that Heaven denies ? 

Methinks in that refulgent sphere 

That knows not sun or moon, 
An earth-born saint might long to hear 

One verse of " Bonny Doon " ; 

Or walking through the streets of gold 

In Heaven's unclouded light, 
His lips recall the song of old 

And hum " The sky is bright." 
^ m * M^ 



136 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

And can we smile when thou art dead ? 

Ah, brothers, even so I 
The rose of summer will be red, 

In spite of winter's snow. 

Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom 

Because thy song is still, 
Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom 

With grief's untimely chill. 

The sighing wintry winds complain, — 
The singing bird has flown, — 

Hark ! heard I not that ringing strain, 
That clear celestial tone ? 

How poor these pallid phrases seem, 
How weak this tinkling line, 

As warbles through my waking dream 
That angel voice of thine ! 

Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay ; 

It falters on my tongue ; 
For all we vainly strive to say, 

Thou shouldst thyself have sung I 



V. 

I FEAR that I have done injustice in my conversa- 
tion and my report of it to a most worthy and promis- 
ing young man whom I should be very sorry to injure 
in any way. Dr. Benjamin Franklin got hold of my 
account of my visit to him, and complained that I had 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 137 

made too much of the expression he used. He did 
not mean to say that he thought I was suffering from 
the rare disease he mentioned, but only that the color 
reminded him of it. It was true that he had shown 
me various instruments, among them one for exploring 
the state of a part by means of a puncture, but he did 
not propose to make use of it upon my person. In 
short, I had colored the story so as to make him look 
ridiculous. 

— I am afraid I did, — I said, — but was n't I 
colored myself so as to look ridiculous ? I Ve heard 
it said that people with the jaundice see everything 
yellow ; perhaps I saw things looking a little queerly, 
with that black and blue spot I could n't account for 
threatening to make a colored man and brother of me. 
But I am sorry if I have done you any wrong. I 
hope you won't lose any patients by my making a little 
fun of your meters and scopes and contrivances. 
They seem so odd to us outside people. Then the 
idea of being bronzed all over was such an alarming 
suggestion. But I did not mean to damage your 
business, which I trust is now considerable, and I 
shaU certainly come to you again if I have need of the 
services of a physician. Only don't mention the 
names of any diseases in English or Latin before me 
next time. I dreamed about cutis cenea half the night 
after I came to see you. 

Dr. Benjamin took my apology very pleasantly. 
He did not want to be touchy about it, he said, but 



138 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

he had his way to make in the world, and found it a 
little hard at first, as most young men did. People 
were afraid to trust them, no matter how much they 
knew. One of the old doctors asked him to come in 
and examine a patient's heart for him the other day. 
He went with him accordingly, and when they stood 
by the bedside, he offered his stethoscope to the old 
doctor. The old doctor took it and put the wrong 
end to his ear and the other to the patient's chest, 
and kept it there about two minutes, looking all the 
time as wise as an old owl. Then he, Dr. Benjamin, 
took it and applied it properly, and made out where 
the trouble was in no time at all. But what was the 
use of a young man's pretending to know anything in 
the presence of an old owl ? I saw by their looks, he 
said, that they all thought / used the stethoscope 
wrong end up, and was nothing but a 'prentice hand 
to the old doctor. 

— I am much pleased to say that since Dr. Benja- 
min has had charge of a dispensary district, and been 
visiting forty or fifty patients a day, I have reason 
to think he has grown a great deal more practical 
than when I made my visit to his ofl&ce. I think I 
was probably one of his first patients, and that he nat- 
urally made the most of me. But my second trial 
was much more satisfactory. I got an ugly cut from 
the carving-knife in an affair with a goose of iron con- 
stitution in which I came off second best. I at once 
adjourned with Dr. Benjamin to his small office, and 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 139 

put myself in his hands. It was astonishing to see 
what a little experience of miscellaneous practice had 
done for him. He did not ask me any more questions 
about my hereditary predispositions on the paternal 
and maternal sides. He did not examine me with the 
stethoscope or the laryngoscope. He only strapped up 
my cut, and informed me that it would speedily get 
well by the "first intention," — an odd phrase enough, 
but sounding much less formidable than cutis cenea, 

I am afraid I have had something of the French 
prejudice which embodies itself in the maxim "young 
surgeon, old physician." But a young physician who 
has been taught by great masters of the profession, 
in ample hospitals, starts in his profession know- 
ing more than some old doctors have learned in a 
lifetime. Give him a little time to get the use of his 
wits in emergencies, and to know the little arts that 
do so much for a patient's comfort, — just as you give 
a young sailor time to get his sear-legs on and teach 
his stomach to behave itself, — and he will do well 
enough. 

The Old Master knows ten times more about this 
matter and about all the professions, as he does about 
everything else, than I do. My opinion is that he has 
studied two, if not three, of these professions in a reg- 
ular course. I don't know that he has ever preached, 
except as Charles Lamb said Coleridge always did, 
for when he gets the bit in his teeth he runs away 
with the conversation, and if he only took a text his 



140 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

talk would be a sermon ; but if tie has not preached, 
he has made a study of theology, as many laymen do. 
I know he has some shelves of medical books in his 
library, and has ideas on the subject of the healing 
art. He confesses to having attended law lectures and 
having had much intercourse with lawyers. So he 
has something to say on almost any subject that hap- 
pens to come up. I told him my story about my visit 
to the young doctor, and asked him what he thought 
of youthful practitioners in general and of Dr. Benjar 
min in particular. 

I '11 tell you what, — the Master said, — I know 
something about these young fellows that come home 
with their heads full of " science," as they call it, and 
stick up their signs to tell people they know how to 
cure their headaches and stomach-aches. Science is a 
first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, 
if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if 
a man has n't got plenty of good common sense, the 
more science he has the worse for his patient. 

— I don't know that I see exactly how it is worse 
for the patient, — I said. 

— Well, I '11 tell you, and you '11 find it 's a mighty 
simple matter. When a person is sick, there is 
always something to be done for him, and done at 
once. If it is only to open or shut a window, if it is 
only to tell him to keep on doing just what he is 
doing already, it wants a man to bring his mind right 
down to the fact of the present case and its immediate 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 141 

needs. Now the present case, as the doctor sees it, is 
just exactly such a collection of paltry individual 
facts as never was before, — a snarl and tangle of 
special conditions which it is his business to wind as 
much thread out of as he can. It is a good deal as 
when a painter goes to take the portrait of any sitter 
who happens to send for him. He has seen just such 
noses and just such eyes and just such mouths, but he 
never saw exactly such a face before, and his business 
is with that and no other person's, — with the features 
of the worthy father of a family before him, and not 
with the portraits he has seen in galleries or books, or 
Mr. Copley's grand pictures of the fine old Tories, or 
the Apollos and Jupiters of Greek sculpture. It is 
the same thing with the patient. His disease has 
features of its own ; there never was and never will be 
another case in all respects exactly like it. If a doctor 
has science without common sense, he treats a fever, 
but not this man's fever. If he has common sense 
without science, he treats this man's fever without 
knowing the general laws that govern all fevers and 
all vital movements. I '11 tell you what saves these 
last fellows. They go for weakness whenever they 
see it, with stimulants and strengtheners, and they go 
for overaction, heat, and high pulse, and the rest, with 
cooling and reducing remedies. That is three 
quarters of medical practice. The other quarter 
wants science and common sense too. But the men 
that have science only, begin too far back, and, before 



142 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

they get as far as the case in hand, the patient has 
very likely gone to visit his deceased relatives. You 
remember Thomas Prince's " Chronological History of 
New England," I suppose ? He begins, you recollect, 
with Adam, and has to work down five thousand six 
hundred and twenty-four years before he gets to the 
Pilgrim fathers and the Mayflower. It was all very 
well, only it did n't belong there, but got in the way 
of something else. So it is with "sciejice" out of 
place. By far the larger part of the facts of structure 
and function you find in the books of anatomy and 
physiology have no immediate application to the daily 
duties of the practitioner. You must learn systemat- 
ically, for all that ; it is the easiest way and the only 
way that takes hold of the memory, except mere em- 
pirical repetition, like that of the handicraftsman. 
Did you ever see one of those Japanese figures with 
the points for acupuncture marked upon it ? 

— I had to own that my schooling had left out that 
piece of information. 

Well, 1 11 tell you about it. You see they have a 
way of pushing long, slender needles into you for the 
cure of rheumatism and other complaints, and it 
seems there is a choice of spots for the operation, 
though it is very strange how little mischief it does in 
a good many places one would think unsafe to meddle 
with. So they had a doll made, and marked the spots 
where they had put in needles without doing any 
harm. They must have had accidents from sticking 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 143 

the needles into the wrong places now and then, but I 
suppose they didn't say a great deal about those. 
After a time, say a few centuries of experience, they 
had their doll all spotted over with safe places for 
sticking in the needles. That is their way of register- 
ing practical knowledge. We, on the other hand, 
study the structure of the body as a whole, systemat- 
ically, and have no difficulty at all in remembering the 
track of the great vessels and nerves, and knowing 
just what tracks will be safe and what unsafe. It is 
just the same thing with the geologists. Here is a 
man close by us boring for water through one of our 
ledges, because somebody else got water somewhere 
else in that way ; and a person who knows geology or 
ought to know it, because he has given his life to it, 
tells me he might as well bore there for lager-beer as 
for water. 

— I thought we had had enough of this particular 
matter, and that I should like to hear what the Master 
had to say about the three professions he knew some- 
thing about, each compared with the others. 

What is your general estimate of doctors, lawyers, 
and ministers ? — said I. 

— Wait a minute, till I have got through with your 
first question, — said the Master. — One thing at a 
time. You asked me about the young doctors, and 
about our young doctor. They come home trhs bien 
chauss4s, as a Frenchman would say, mighty well shod 
with professional knowledge. But when they begin 



144 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

walking round among their poor patients, — tliey 
don't commonly start with millionnaires, — they find 
that their new shoes of scientific acquirements have 
got to be broken in just like a pair of boots or bro- 
gans. I don't know that I have put it quite strong 
enough. Let me try again. You 've seen those fel- 
lows at the circus that get up on horseback so big 
that you wonder how they could climb into the saddle. 
But pretty soon they throw off their outside coat, and 
the next minute another one, and then the one under 
that, and so they keep peeling off one garment after 
another till people begin to look queer and think 
they are going too far for strict propriety. Well, that 
is the way a fellow with a real practical turn serves 
a good many of his scientific wrappers, — flings 'em 
off for other people to pick up, and goes right at the 
work of curing stomach-aches and all the other little 
mean unscientific complaints that make up the larger 
part of every doctor's business. I think our Dr. Ben- 
jamin is a worthy young man, and if you are in need 
of a doctor at any time I hope you will go to him ; 
and if you come off without harm, I will — recom- 
mend some other friend to try him. 

— I thought he was going to say he would try him 
in his own person, but the Master is not fond of com- 
mitting himself. 

IS^ow, I will answer your other question, he said. — 
The lawyers are the cleverest men, the ministers are 
the most learned, and the doctors are the most sen- 
sible. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 145 

The lawyers are a picked lot, " first scholars " and 
the like, but their business is as unsympathetic as 
Jack Ketch's. There is nothing humanizing in their 
relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for the 
side that retains them. They defend the man they 
know to be a rogue, and not very rarely throw suspi- 
cion on the man they know to be innocent. Mind you, 
I am not finding fault with them ; every side of a case 
has a right to the best statement it admits of; but I 
say it does not tend to make them sympathetic. Sup- 
pose in a case of Fever vs. Patient, the doctor should 
side with either party according to whether the old 
miser or his expectant heir was his employer. Sup- 
pose the minister should side with the Lord or the 
Devil, according to the salary offered and other inci- 
dental advantages, where the soul of a sinner was in 
question. You can see what a piece of work it would 
make of their sympathies. But the lawyers are 
quicker witted than either of the other professions, 
and abler men generally. They are good-natured, or, 
if they quarrel, their quarrels are above-board. I 
don't think they are as accomplished as the ministers, 
but they have a way of cramming mth special 
knowledge for a case which leaves a certain shallow 
sediment of intelligence in their memories about a 
good many things. They are apt to talk law in mixed 
company, and they have a way of looking round when 
they make a point, as if they were addressing a jury, 
that is mighty aggravating, as I once had occasion to 

7 J 



146 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

see when one of 'em, and a pretty famous one, put me 
on the witness-stand at a dinner-party once. 

The ministers come next in point of talent. They 
are far more curious and widely interested outside of 
their own calling than either of the other professions. 
I like to talk with 'em. They are interesting men, 
full of good feelings, hard workers, always foremost in 
good deeds, and on the whole the most efficient civil- 
izing class, working downwards from knowledge to 
ignorance, that is, — not so much upwards, perhaps, 
— that we have. The trouble is, that so many of 'em 
work in harness, and it is pretty sure to chafe some- 
where. They feed us on canned meats mostly. They 
cripple our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch 
of doctrine. I have talked with a great many of 'em 
of all sorts of belief, and I don't think they are quite 
so easy in their minds, the greater number of them, 
nor so clear in their convictions, as one would think 
to hear 'em lay down the law in the pulpit. They 
used to lead the intelligence of their parishes ; now 
they do pretty well if they keep up with it, and they 
are very apt to lag behind it. Then they must have 
a colleague. The old minister thinks he can hold 
to his old course, sailing right into the wind's eye of 
human nature, as straight as that famous old skipper 
John Bunyan ; the young minister falls off three or 
four points and catches the breeze that left the old 
man's sails all shivering. By and by the congregation 
will get ahead of him, and then it must have another 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 147 

new skipper. The priest holds his own pretty well ; 
the minister is coming down every generation nearer 
and nearer to the common level of the useful citizen, — 
no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral 
instincts, who, if he knows anything, knows how little 
he knows. The ministers are good talkers, only the 
struggle between nature and grace makes some of 'em 
a little awkward occasionally. The women do their 
best to spoil 'em, as they do the poets; you find it 
very pleasant to be spoiled, no doubt; so do they. 
Now and then one of 'em goes over the dam ; no 
wonder, they're always in the rapids. 

By this time our three ladies had their faces all 
turned toward the speaker, like the weathercocks in a 
northeaster, and I thought it best to switch off the 
talk on to another rail. 

How about the doctors ? — I said. 

— Theirs is the least learned of the professions, in 
this country at least. They have not half the general 
culture of the lawyers, nor a quarter of that of the 
ministers. I rather think, though, they are more 
agreeable to the common run of people than the men 
with black coats or the men with green bags. People 
can swear before 'em if they want to, and they can't 
very well before ministers. I don't care whether they 
want to swear or not, they don't want to be on their 
good behavior. Besides, the minister has a little 
smack of the sexton about him; he comes when 
people are in extremisj but they don't send for him 



]L48 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

every time they make a slight moral slip, — tell a lie 
for instance, or smuggle a silk dress through the cus- 
tom-house ; but they call in the doctor when a child 
is cutting a tooth or gets a splinter in its finger. So it 
does n't mean much to send for him, only a pleasant 
chat about the news of the day ; for putting the baby to 
rights does n't take long. Besides, everybody does n't 
like to talk about the next world ; people are modest 
in their desires, and find this world as good as they 
deserve ; but everybody loves to talk physic. Every- 
body loves to hear of strange cases ; people are eager 
to tell the doctor of the wonderful cures they have 
heard of ; they want to know what is the matter vdth 
somebody or other who is said to be suffering from " a 
complication of diseases," and above all to get a hard 
name, Greek or Latin, for some complaint which 
sounds altogether too commonplace in plain English. 
If you v^U only call a headache a Cephalalgia, it 
acquires dignity at once, and a patient becomes rather 
proud of it. So I think doctors are generally welcome 
in most companies. 

In old times, when people w^re more afraid of the 
Devil and of vdtches than th^y are now, they liked to 
have a priest or a minister somewhere near to scare 
'em off* ; but nowadays, if you could find an old woman 
that would ride round the room on a broomstick, 
Barnum would build an amphitheatre to exhibit her 
in ; and if he could come across a young imp, with 
hoofs^ tail, and budding horns, a lineal descendant of 



THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 149 

one of those *' daemons " which the good people of 
Gloucester fired at, and were fired at by " for the best 
part of a month together" in the year 1692, the great 
showman would have him at any cost for his museum 
or menagerie. Men are cowards, sir, and are driven 
by fear as the sovereign motive. Men are idolaters, 
and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or 
throw themselves down before ; they always did, they 
always will ; and if you don't make it of wood, you 
must make it of words, which are just as much used 
for idols as promissory notes are used for values. The 
ministers have a hard time of it without bell and 
book and holy water; they are dismounted men in 
armor since Luther cut their saddle-girths, and you 
can see they are quietly taking off one piece of iron 
after another until some of the best of 'em are fighting 
the devil (not the zoological Devil with the big D) 
with the sword of the Spirit, and precious little else in 
the way of weapons of offence or defence. But we 
couldn't get on without the spiritual brotherhood, 
whatever became of our special creeds. There is a 
genius for religion, just as there is for painting or 
sculpture. It is half-sister to the genius for music, 
and has some of the features which remind us of 
earthly love. But it lifts us all by its mere presence. 
To see a good man and hear his voice once a week 
would be reason enough for building churches and 
pulpits. — The Master stopped all at once, and after 
about half a minute laughed his pleasant laugh. 



150 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

What is it ? — I asked him. 

I was thinkiDg of the great coach and team that is 
carrying us fast enough, I don't know but too fast, 
somewhere or other. The D. D.s used to be the lead- 
ers, but now they are the wheel-horses. It 's pretty 
hard to tell how much they pull, but we know they 
^an hold back like the — 

— When we 're going down hill, — I said, as neatly 
as if I had been a High-Church curate trained to snap 
at the last word of the response, so that you could n't 
wedge in the tail of a comma between the end of the 
congregation's closing syllable and the beginning of 
the next petition. They do it well, but it always 
spoils my devotion. To save my life, I can't help 
watching them, as I watch to see a duck dive at the 
flash of a gun, and that is not what I go to church for. 
It is a juggler's trick, and there is no more religion in 
it than in catching a ball on the fly. 

I was looking at our Scheherazade the other day, 
and thinking what a pity it was that she had never 
had fair play in the world. I wish I knew more of 
her history. There is one way of learning it, — mak- 
ing love to her. I wonder whether she would let me 
and like it. It is an absurd thing, and I ought not to 
confess, but I tell you and you only. Beloved, my 
heart gave a perceptible jump when it heard the whis- 
per of that possibility overhead ! Every day has its 
ebb and flow, but such a thought as that is like one 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 151 

of those tidal waves they talk about, that rolls in like 
a great wall and overtops and drowns out all your 
landmarks, and you, too, if you don't mind what you 
are about and stand ready to run or climb or swim. 
Not quite so bad as that, though, this time. I take an 
interest in our Scheherazade. I am glad she did n't 
gmile on the pipe and the Bohemian-looking fellow 
that finds the best part of his life in sucking at it. 
A. fine thing, is n't it, for a young woman to marry a 
man who will hold her 

" Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse," 

but not quite so good as his meerschaum ? It is n't 
for me to throw stones, though, who have been a 
Kicotian a good deal more than half my days. Cigar- 
stump out now, and consequently have become very 
bitter on more persevering sinners. I say I take an in- 
terest in our Scheherazade, but I rather think it is more 
paternal than anything else, though my heart did give 
that jump. It has jumped a good many times with- 
out anything very remarkable coming of it. 

This visit to the Observatory is going to bring us 
all, or most of us, together in a new way, and it 
would n't be very odd if some of us should become 
better acquainted than we ever have been. There is 
a chance for the elective aflanities. What tremendous 
forces they are, if two subjects of them come within 
range 1 There lies a bit of iron. All the dynamic 
agencies of the universe are pledged to hold it just in 



152 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

that position, and there it will lie until it becomes a 
heap of red-brown rust. But see, I hold a magnet to 
it, — it looks to you like just such a bit of iron as the 
other, — and lo ! it leaves them all, — the tugging of 
the mighty earth ; of the ghostly moon that walks in 
white, trailing the snaky waves of the ocean after her ; 
of the awful sun, twice as large as a sphere that the 
whole orbit of the moon would but just girdle, — it 
leaves the wrestling of all their forces, which are at a 
dead lock with each other, all fighting for it, and 
springs straight to the magnet. What a lucky thing 
it is for well-conducted persons that the maddening 
elective affinities don't come into play in full force 
very often ! 

I suppose I am making a good deal more of our 
prospective visit than it deserves. It must be because 
I have got it into my head that we are bound to have 
some kind of sentimental outbreak amongst us, and 
that this will give a chance for advances on the part of 
anybody disposed in that direction. A little change of 
circumstance often hastens on a movement that has 
been long in preparation. A chemist will show you a 
flask containing a clear liquid ; he will give it a shake 
or two, and the whole contents of the flask will become 
solid in an instant. Or you may lay a little heap of 
iron-filings on a sheet of paper with a magnet beneath 
it, and they will be quiet enough as they are, but give 
the paper a slight jar and the specks of metal will 
suddenly find their way to the north or the south pole 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 153 

of the magnet and take a definite shape not unpleas- 
ing to contemplate, and curiously illustrating the laws 
of attraction, antagonism, and average, by which the 
worlds, conscious and unconscious, are alike governed. 
So with our little party, with any little party of per- 
sons who have got used to each other ; leave them 
undisturbed and they might remain in a state of equi- 
librium forever ; but let anything give them a shake 
or a jar, and the long-striving but hindered affinities 
come all at once into play and finish the work of a 
year in five minutes. 

We were all a good deal excited by the anticipation 
of this visit. The Capitalist, who for the most part 
keeps entirely to himself, seemed to take an interest 
in it and joined the group in the parlor who were 
making arrangements as to the details of the eventful 
expedition, which was very soon to take place. The 
Young Girl was full of enthusiasm ; she is one of 
those young persons, I think, who are impressible, 
and of necessity depressible when their nervous sys- 
tems are overtasked, but elastic, recovering easily from 
mental worries and fatigues, and only wanting a little 
change of their conditions to get back their bloom and 
cheerfulness. I could not help being pleased to see 
how much of the child was left in her, after all the 
drudgery she had been through. What is there that 
youth will not endure and triumph over ? Here she 
was ; her story for the week was done in good season ; 
ehe had got rid of her villain by a nevf and original 
7* 



154 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

catastrophe ; she had received a sum of money for an 
extra string of verses, — painfully small, it is true, but 
it would buy her a certain ribbon she wanted for the 
great excursion ; and now her eyes sparkled so that I 
forgot how tired and hollow they sometimes looked 
when she had been sitting up half the night over her 
endless manuscript. 

The morning of the day we had looked forward to 
promised as good an evening as we could wish. The 
Capitalist, whose courteous and bland demeanor would 
never have suggested the thought that he was a robber 
and an enemy of his race, who was to be trampled 
underfoot by the beneficent regenerators of the social 
order as preliminary to the universal reign of peace on 
earth and good-will to men, astonished us all with a 
proposal to escort the three ladies and procure a car- 
riage for their conveyance. The Lady thanked him in 
a very cordial way, but said she thought nothing of 
the walk. The Landlady looked disappointed at this 
answer. For her part she was on her legs all day 
and should be glad enough to ride, if so be he was 
going to have a carriage at any rate. It would be 
a sight pleasanter than to trudge afoot, but she 
would n't have him go to the expense on her account. 
— Don't mention it, madam, — said the Capitalist, in 
a generous glow of enthusiasm. As for the Young 
Girl, she did not often get a chance for a drive, and 
liked the idea of it for its own sake, as children do, 
and she insisted that the Lady should go in the car- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 155 

riage with her. So it was settled that the Capitalist 
should take the three ladies in a carriage, and the rest 
of us go on foot. 

The evening behaved as it was bound to do on so 
momentous an occasion. The Capitalist was dressed 
with almost suspicious nicety. We pedestrians could 
not help waiting to see them off, and I thought he 
handed the ladies into the carriage with the air of a 
French marquis. 

I walked with Dr. Benjamin and That Boy, and we 
had to keep the little imp on the trot a good deal 
of the way in order not to be too long behind the 
carriage party. The Member of the Haouse walked 
with our two dummies, — I beg their pardon, I mean 
the Register of Deeds and the Salesman. 

The Man of Letters, hypothetically so called, walked 
by himself, smoking a short pipe which was very far 
from suggesting the spicy breezes that blow soft from 
Ceylon's isle. 

I suppose everybody who reads this paper has visited 
one or more observatories, and of course knows all 
about them. But as it may hereafter be translated 
into some foreign tongue and circulated among bar- 
barous, but rapidly improving people, people who 
have as yet no astronomers among them, it may be 
well to give a little notion of what kind of place an 
observatory is. 

To begin then : a deep and solid stone foundation is 
laid in the earth, and a massive pier of masonry is 



156 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

built up on it. A heavy block of granite forms the 
summit of this pier, and on this block rests the equa- 
torial telescope. Around this structure a circular 
tower is built, with two or more floors which come 
close up to the pier, but do not touch it at any point. 
It is crowned with a hemispherical dome, which, I may 
remark, half realizes the idea of my egg-shell studio. 
This dome is cleft from its base to its summit by a 
narrow, ribbon-like opening, through which is seen the 
naked sky. It revolves on cannon-balls, so easily that 
a single hand can move it, and thus the opening may 
be turned towards any point of the compass. As 
the telescope can be raised or depressed so as to be 
directed to any elevation from the horizon to the 
zenith, and turned around the entire circle with the 
dome, it can be pointed to any part of the heavens. 
But as the star or other celestial object is always 
apparently moving, in consequence of the real rotatory 
movement of the earth, the telescope is made to follow 
it automatically by an ingenious clock-work arrange- 
ment. No place, short of the temple of the living 
God, can be more solemn. The jars of the restless 
life around it do not disturb the serene intelligence of 
the half-reasoning apparatus. Nothing can stir the 
massive pier but the shocks that shake the solid earth 
itself. When an earthquake thrills the planet, the mas- 
sive turret shudders with the shuddering rocks on 
which it rests, but it pays no heed to the wildest 
tempest, and while the heavens are convulsed and 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 157 

shut from the eye of the far-seeing instrument it waits 
without a tremor for the blue sky to come back. It 
is the type of the true and steadfast man of the 
Roman poet, whose soul remains unmoved while the 
firmament cracks and tumbles about him. It is the 
material image of the Christian ; his heart resting on 
the Rock of Ages, his eye fixed on the brighter world 
above. 

I did not say all this while we were looking round 
among these wonders, quite new to many of us. Peo- 
ple don't talk in straight-ofF sentences like that. They 
stumble and stop, or get interrupted, change a word, 
begin again, miss connections of verbs and nouns, and 
so on, till they blunder out their meaning. But I did 
let fall a word or two, showing the impression the ce- 
lestial laboratory produced upon me. I rather think I 
must own to the " Rock of Ages " comparison. There- 
upon the " Man of Letters," so called, took his pipe 
from his mouth, and said that he did n't go in " for 
sentiment and that sort of thing. Gush was played 
out." 

The Member of the Haouse, who, as I think, is not 
wanting in that homely good sense which one often 
finds in plain people from the huckleberry districts, 
but who evidently supposes the last speaker to be 
what he calls " a tahlented mahn," looked a little puz- 
zled. My remark seemed natural and harmless enough 
to him, I suppose, but I had been distinctly snubbed, 
and the Member of the Haouse thought I must defend 



158 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

myself, as is customary in the deliberative body to 
which he belongs,, when one gentleman accuses another 
gentleman of mental weakness or obliquity. I could 
not make up my mind to oblige him at that moment 
by showing fight. I suppose that would have pleased 
my assailant, as I don't think he has a great deal to 
lose, and might have made a little capital out of me 
if he could have got a laugh out of the Member or 
either of the dummies, — I beg their pardon again, 
I mean the two undemonstrative "boarders. But I 
will tell you, Beloved, just what I think about this 
matter. 

We poets, you know, are much given to indulging 
in sentiment, which is a mode of consciousness at a 
discount just now with the new generation of analysts 
who are throwing everything into their crucibles. Now 
we must not claim too much for sentiment. It does 
not go a great way in deciding questions of arithme- 
tic, or algebra, or geometry. Two and two will un- 
doubtedly make four, irrespective of the emotions or 
other idiosyncrasies of the calculator ; and the three 
angles of a triangle insist on being equal to two right 
angles, in the face of the most impassioned rhetoric 
or the most inspired verse. But inasmuch as religion 
and law and the whole social order of civilized society, 
to say nothing of literature and art, are so founded on 
and pervaded by sentiment that they would all go to 
pieces without it, it is a word not to be used too lightly 
in passing judgment, as if it were an element to be 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 159 

thrown out or treated with small consideration. Rea- 
son may be the lever, but sentiment gives you the 
fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move 
the world. Even " sentimentality," which is sentiment 
overdone, is better than that affectation of superiority 
to human weakness which is only tolerable as one of 
the stage properties of full-blown dandyism, and is, at 
best, but half-blown cynicism ; which participle and 
noun you can translate, if you happen to remember the 
derivation of the last of them, by a single familiar 
word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in the 
world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine ; 
but it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young 
poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself 
about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger 
repeating such words as " sentimentality " and " en- 
tusymusy," — one of the least admirable of Lord 
Byron's bequests to our language, — for the purpose 
of ridiculing him into silence. An over-dressed woman 
is not so pleasing as she might be, but at any rate she 
is better than the oil of vitriol squirter, whose profes- 
sion it is to teach young ladies to avoid vanity by 
spoiling their showy silks and satins. 

The Lady was the first of our party who was invited 
to look through the equatorial. Perhaps this world 
had proved so hard to her that she was pained to 
think that other worlds existed, to be homes of suffer- 
ing and sorrow. Perhaps she was thinking it would 
be a happy change when she should leave this dark 



160 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

planet for one of those brighter spheres. She sighed, 
at any rate, but thanked the young astronomer for the 
beautiful sights he had shown her, and gave way to 
the next comer, who was That Boy, now in a state of 
irrepressible enthusiasm to see the Man in the Moon, 
He was greatly disappointed at not making out a 
colossal human figure moving round among the shin- 
ing summits and shadowy ravines of the " spotty 
globe." 

The Landlady came next and wished to see the 
moon also, in preference to any other object. She 
was astonished at the revelations of the powerful tel- 
escope. Was there any live creatures to be seen on 
the moon ? she asked. The young astronomer shook 
his head, smiling a little at the question. Was there 
any meet'n'-houses ? There was no evidence, he said, 
that the moon was inhabited. As there did not seem 
to be either air or water on its surface, the inhabitants 
would have a rather hard time of it, and if they went 
to meeting the sermons would be apt to be rather 
dry. If there were a building on it as big as York 
minster, as big as the Boston Coliseum, the great tele- 
scopes like Lord Rosse's would make it out. But it 
seemed to be a forlorn place ; those who had studied 
it most agreed in considering it a ^^ cold, crude, silent, 
and desolate " ruin of nature, without the possibility, 
if life were on it, of articulate speech, of music, even 
of sound. Sometimes a greenish tint was seen upon 
its surface, which might have been taken for vegetar 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 161 

tion, but it was thought not improbably to be a reflec- 
tion from the vast forests of South America. The 
ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the 
moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the 
earth were imaged. Now we know the geography of 
the side toward us about as well as that of Asia, 
better than that of Africa. The astronomer showed 
them one of the common small photographs of the 
moon. He assured them that he had received letters 
inquiring in all seriousness if these alleged lunar pho- 
tographs were not really taken from a peeled orange. 
People had got angry with him for laughing at them 
for asking such a question. Then he gave them an 
account of the famous moon-hoax which came out, he 
believed, in 1835. It was full of the most barefaced 
absurdities, yet people swallowed it all, and even 
Arago is said to have treated it seriously as a thing 
that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel would 
have certainly notified him of these marvellous discov- 
eries. The writer of it had not troubled himself to 
invent probabilities, but had borrowed his scenery 
from the Arabian Nights and his lunar inhabitants 
from Peter Wilkins. 

After this lecture the Capitalist stepped forward 
and applied his eye to the lens. I suspect it to have 
been shut most of the time, for I observe a good many 
elderly people adjust the organ of vision to any opti- 
cal instrument in that way. I suppose it is from the 
instinct of protection to the eye, the same instinct as 



162 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

that which makes the raw militia^man close it when 
he pulls the trigger of his musket the first time. He 
expressed himself highly gratified, however, with what 
he saw, and retired from the instrument to make room 
for the Young Girl. 

She threw her hair back and took her position at 
the instrument. Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger 
explained the wonders of the moon to her, — Tycho 
and the grooves radiating fi-om it, Kepler and Coper- 
nicus with their craters and ridges, and all the most 
brilliant shows of this wonderful little world. I 
thought he was more difiuse and more enthusiastic in 
his descriptions than he had been with the older mem- 
bers of the party. I don't doubt the old gentleman 
who lived so long on the top of his pillar would have 
kept a pretty sinner (if he could have had an elevator 
to hoist her up to him) longer than he would have 
kept her grandmother. These young people are so 
ignorant, you know. As for our Scheherazade, her de- 
light was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable. If 
there were any living creatures there, what odd things 
they must be. They could n't have any lungs, nor 
any hearts. What a pity 1 Did they ever die ? How 
could they expire if they did n't breathe ? Bum up ? 
No air to burn in. Tumble into some of those horrid 
pits, perhaps, and break all to bits. She wondered how 
the young people there liked it, or whether there were 
any young people there ; perhaps nobody was young 
and nobody was old, but they were like mummies all 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 163 

of them — what an idea — two mummies making love 
to each other ! So she went on in a rattling, giddy- 
kind of way, for she was excited by the strange scene 
in which she found herself, and quite astonished the 
young astronomer with her vivacity. All at once she 
turned to him. 

Will you show me the double star you said I should 
see? 

With the greatest pleasure, — he said, and proceed- 
ed to wheel the ponderous dome, and then to adjust 
the instrument, I think to the one in Andromeda, or 
that in Cygnus, but I should not know one of them 
from the other. 

How beautiful ! — she said as she looked at the 
wonderful object. — One is orange red and one is 
emerald green. 

The young man made an explanation in which he 
said something about complementary colors. 

Goodness ! — exclaimed the Landlady. — What ! 
complimentary to our party? 

Her wits must have been a good deal confused by 
the strange sights of the evening. She had seen tick- 
ets marked complimentary, she remembered, but she 
could not for the life of her understand why our party 
should be particularly favored at a celestial exhibition 
like this. On the whole, she questioned inwardly 
whether it might not be some subtle pleasantry, and 
smiled, experimentally, with a note of interrogation in 
the smile, but, finding no encouragement, allowed her 



164 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST -TABLE. 

features to subside gradually as if nothing had hap- 
pened. I saw all this as plainly as if it had all been 
printed in great-primer type, instead of working itself 
out in her features. I like to see other people mud- 
dled now and then, because my own occasional dul- 
ness is relieved by a good solid background of stupidity 
in my neighbors. 

— And the two revolve round each other ? — said 
the Young Girl. 

— Yes, — he answered, — two suns, a greater and 
a less, each shining, but with a different light, for the 
other. 

— How charming ! It must be so much pleasanter 
than to be alone in such a great empty space ! I 
should think one would hardly care to shine if its light 
wasted itself in the monstrous solitude of the sky. 
Does not a single star seem very lonely to you up 
there? 

— Not more lonely than I am myself, — answered 
the Young Astronomer. 

— I don't know what there was in those few words, 
but I noticed that for a minute or two after they were 
uttered I heard the ticking of the clock-work that 
moved the telescope as clearly as if we had all been 
holding our breath, and listening for the music of the 
spheres. 

The Young Girl kept her eye closely applied to the 
eye-piece of the telescope a very long time, it seemed 
to me. Those double stars interested her a good deal^ 



THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 165 

no doubt. When she looked off from the glass I 
thought both her eyes appeared very much as if they 
had been a little strained, for they were suffused and 
glistening. It may be that she pitied the lonely young 
man. 

I know nothing in the world tenderer than the pity 
that a kind-hearted young girl has for a young man 
who feels lonely. It is true that these dear creatures 
are all compassion for every form of human woe, and 
anxious to alleviate all human misfortunes. They will 
go to Sunday schools through storms their brothers 
are afraid of, to teach the most unpleasant and intract- 
able classes of little children the age of Methuselah 
and the dimensions of Og the King of Bashan's bed- 
stead. They will stand behind a table at a fair all 
day until they are ready to drop, dressed in their pret- 
tiest clothes and their sweetest smiles, and lay hands 
upon you, like so many Lady Potiphars, — perfectly 
correct ones, of course, — to make you buy what you 
do not want, at prices which you cannot afford; all 
this as cheerfully as if it were not martyrdom to them 
as well as to you. Such is their love for all good 
objects, such their eagerness to sympathize with all 
their suffering fellow-creatures ! But there is nothing 
they pity as they pity a lonely young man. 

I am sure, I sympathize ^vith her in this instance. 
To see a pale student burning away, like his own mid- 
night lamp, with only dead men's hands to hold, 
stretched out to him from the sepulchres of books, and 



166 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

dead men's souls imploring him from their tablets to 
warm them over again just for a little while in a 
human consciousness, when all this time there are 
soft, warm, living hands that would ask nothing bet- 
ter than to bring the blood back into those cold thin 
fingers, and gently caressing natures that would wind 
all their tendrils about the unawakened heart which 
knows so little of itself, is pitiable enough and would 
be sadder still if we did not have the feeling that 
sooner or later the pale student will be pretty sure to 
feel the breath of a young girl against his cheek as she 
looks over his shoulder ; and that he will come all at 
once to an illuminated page in his book that never 
writer traced in characters, and never printer set up in 
type, and never binder enclosed within his covers ! 
But our young man seems farther away from life than 
any student whose head is bent downwards over his 
books. His eyes are turned away from all human 
things. How cold the moonlight is that falls upon 
his forehead, and how white he looks in it ! Will not 
the rays strike through to his brain at last, and send 
him to a narrower cell than this egg-shell dome which 
is his workshop and his prison ? 

I cannot say that the Young Astronomer seemed 
particularly impressed with a sense of his miserable 
condition. He said he was lonely, it is true, but he 
said it in a manly tone, and not as if he were repining 
at the inevitable condition of his devoting himself to 
that particular branch of science. Of course, he is 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 167 

lonely, the most lonely being that lives in the midst 
of our breathing world. If he would only stay a little 
longer with us when we get talking ; but he is busy 
almost always either in observation or with his calcu- 
lations and studies, and when the nights are fair loses 
so much sleep that he must make it up by day. He 
wants contact with human beings. I wish he would 
change his seat and come round and sit by our Sche- 
herazade ! 

The rest of the visit went off well enough, except 
that the " Man of Letters," so called, rather snubbed 
some of the heavenly bodies as not quite up to his 
standard of brilliancy. I thought myself that the 
double-star episode was the best part of it. 

I have an unexpected revelation to make to the 
reader. Not long after our visit to the Observatory, 
the Young Astronomer put a package into my hands, 
a manuscript, evidently, which he said he would like 
to have me glance over. I found something in it 
which interested me, and told him the next day that I 
should like to read it with some care. He seemed 
rather pleased at this, and said that he wished I would 
criticise it as roughly as I liked, and if I saw anything 
in it which might be dressed to better advantage to 
treat it freely, just as if it were my own production. 
It had often happened to him, he went on to say, to 
be interrupted in his observations by clouds covering 
the objects he was examining for a longer or shorter 



168 THE POET AT THE BBEAKF AST-TABLE. 

time. In these idle moments he had put down many 
thoughts, unskilfully he feared, but just as they came 
into his mind. His blank verse he suspected was 
often faulty. His thoughts he knew must be crude, 
many of them. It would please him to have me 
amuse myself by putting them into shape. He was 
kind enough to say that I was an artist in words, but 
he held himself as an unskilled apprentice. 

I confess I was appalled when I cast my eye upon 
the title of the manuscript, " Cirri and Nebulae." 

— Oh ! oh ! — I said, — that will never do. Peo- 
ple don't know what Cirri are, at least not one out of 
fifty readers, " Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts " will do 
better than that. 

— Anything you like, — he answered, — what dif- 
ference does it make how you christen a foundling ? 
These are not my legitimate scientific offspring, and 
you may consider them left on your doorstep. 

— I will not attempt to say just how much of the 
diction of these lines belongs to him, and how much 
to me. He said he would never claim them, after I 
read them to him in my version. I, on my part, do 
not wish to be held responsible for some of his more 
daring thoughts, if I should see fit to reproduce them 
hereafter. At this time I shall give only the first part 
of the series of poetical outbreaks for which the young 
devotee of science must claim his share of the respon- 
sibility. I may put some more passages into shape by 
and by. , 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 169 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. 

Another clouded night ; the stars are hid, 

The orb that waits my search is hid with them. 

Patience ! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, 

To plant my ladder and to gain the round 

That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, 

Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won ? 

Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear 

That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel 

Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust; 

But the fair garland whose undying green 

Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men ! 

With quickened heart-beats I shall hear the tongues 
That speak my praise ; but better far the sense 
That in the unshaped ages, buried deep 
In the dark mines of unaccomplished time 
Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die 
And coined in golden days, — in those dim years 
I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, 
My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, 
Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade. 
Then, as they call the roll of shining worlds, 
Sages of race unborn in accents new 
Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, 
Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky : 
Here glows the God of Battles ; this recalls 
The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere 
The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name 
To the dim planet with the wondrous rings ; 
Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, 
And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove ; 



170 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

But this^ unseen through all earth'G aeons past, 

A youth who watched beneath the western star 

Sought in the darkness, found, and shewed to men ; 

Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore ! 

So shall that name be syllabled anew 

In all the tongues of all the tribes of men : 

I that have been through immemorial years 

Dust in the dust of my forgotten time 

Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, 

Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born 

In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, 

And stand on high, and look serenely down 

On the new race that calls the earth its own. 

Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul. 
Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain 
Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays 
Blend in soft white, — a cloud that, born of earth. 
Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven ? 
Must every coral-insect leave his sign 
On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, 
As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay. 
Or deem his patient service all in vain ? 
What if another sit beneath the shade 
Of the broad elm I planted by the way, — 
What if another heed the beacon light 
I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel, — 
Have I not done my task and served my kind? 
Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown. 
And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world 
With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, 
Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly o'er, 
Or coupled with some single shining deed 
That in the great account of all his days 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 171 

Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet 

His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven. 

The noblest service comes from nameless hands, 

And the best servant does his work unseen. 

Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot. 

Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame ? 

Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, 

And shaped the moulded metal to his need ? 

Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, 

And tamed the steed that whirls its circlino- round ? 

All these have left their work and not their names, — 

Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs ? 

This is the heavenly light ; the pearly stain 

Was but a wind-cloud drifting o'er the stars 1 



VI. 



I FIND I have so many things in common with the 
Old Master of Arts, that I do not always know wheth- 
er a thought was originally his or mine. That is what 
always happens where two persons of a similar cast of 
mind talk much together. And both of them often 
gain by the interchange. Many ideas grow better 
when transplanted into another mind than in the one 
where they sprang up. That which was a weed in one 
intelligence becomes a flower in the other. A flower, 
on the other hand, may dwindle down to a mere weed 
by the same change. Healthy growths may become 
poisonous by falling upon the wrong mental soil, and 



172 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST -TABLE. 

what seemed a night-shade in one mind unfold as a 
morning-glory in the other. 

— I thank God, — the Master said, — that a great 
many people believe a great deal more than I do. I 
think, when it comes to serious matters, I like those 
who believe more than I do better than those who 
believe less. 

— Why, — said I, — you have got hold of one of 
my own working axioms. I should like to hear you 
develop it. 

The Member of the Haouse said he should be glad 
to listen to the debate. The gentleman had the floor. 
The Scarabee rose from his chair and departed ; — I 
thought his joints creaked as he straightened himself. 

The Young Girl made a slight movement ; it was 
a purely accidental coincidence, no doubt, but I saw 
That Boy put his hand in his pocket and pull out his 
popgun, and begin loading it. It cannot be that our 
Scheherazade, who looks so quiet and proper at the 
table, can make use of That Boy and his catapult to 
control the course of conversation and change it to 
suit herself ! She certainly looks innocent enough ; 
but what does a blush prove, and what does its 
absence prove, on one of these innocent faces ? There 
is nothing in all this world that can lie and cheat like 
the face and the tongue of a young girl. Just give her 
a little touch of hysteria, — I don't mean enough of it 
to make her friends call the doctor in, but a slight 
hint of it in the nervous system, — and " Machiavel 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 173 

the waiting-maid " might take lessons of her. But I 
cannot think our Scheherazade is one of that kind, 
and I am ashamed of myself for noting such a trifling 
coincidence as that whicTi excited my suspicion. 

— I say, — the Master continued, — that I had 
rather be in the company of those who believe more 
than I do, in spiritual matters at least, than of those 
who doubt what I accept as a part of my belief. 

— To tell the truth, — said I, — I find that diffi- 
culty sometimes in talking with you. You have not 
quite so many hesitations as I have in following out 
your logical conclusions. I suppose you would bring 
some things out into daylight questioning that I had 
rather leave in that twilight of half-belief peopled with 
shadows — if they are only shadows — more sacred to 
me than many realities. 

There is nothing I do not question, — said the 
Master ; — I not only begin with the precept of Des- 
cartes, but I hold all my opinions involving any chain 
of reasoning always open to revision. 

— I confess that I smiled internally to hear him say 
that. The Old Master thinks he is open to conviction 
on all subjects ; but if you meddle with some of his 
notions and don't get tossed on his horns as if a bull 
had hold of you, I should call you lucky. 

— You don't mean you doubt everything ? — I 
said. 

— What do you think I question everything for, — 
the Master replied, — if I never get any answers? 



174 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

You 've seen a blind man with a sticky feeling his way 
along ? Well, I am a blind man with a stick, and I 
find the world pretty full of men just as blind as I am, 
but without any stick. I try*the ground to find out 
whether it is firm or not before I rest my weight on 
it ; but after it has borne my weight, that question at 
least is answered. It very certainly was strong enough 
once ; the presumption is that it is strong enough 
now. Still the soil may have been undermined, or I 
may have grown heavier. Make as much of that as 
you will. I say I question everything ; but if I find 
Bunker Hill Monument standing as straight as when I 
leaned against it a year or ten years ago, I am not very 
much afraid that Bunker Hill will cave in if I trust 
myself agaui on the soil of it. 

I glanced ofi", as one often does in talk. 

The Monument is an awful place to visit, — I said. 
— The waves of time are like the waves of the ocean ; 
the only thing they beat against without destroying it 
is a rock ; and they destroy that at last. But it takes 
a good while. There is a stone now standing in very 
good order that was as old as a monument of Louis 
XIV. and Queen Anne's day is now when Joseph went 
down into Egypt. Think of the shaft on Bunker Hill 
standing in the sunshine on the morning of January 
1st in the year 5872 ! 

It won't be standing, — the Master said. — We are 
poor bunglers compared to those old Egyptians. 
There are no joints in one of itheir obelisks. They are 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 175 

our masters in more ways than we know of, and in 
more ways than some of us are willing to know. That 
old Lawgiver was n't learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians for nothing. It scared people well a couple 
of hundred years ago when Sir John Marsham and 
Dr. John Spencer ventured to tell their stories about 
the sacred ceremonies of the Egyptian priesthood. 
People are beginning to find out now that you can't 
study any religion by itself to any good purpose. You 
must have comparative theology as you have compara- 
tive anatomy. What would you make of a cat's fool- 
ish little good-for-nothing collar-bone, if you did not 
know how the same bone means a good deal in other 
creatures, — in yourself, for instance, as you '11 find 
out if you break it ? You can't know too much of 
your race and its beliefs, if you want to know anything 
about your Maker. I never found but one sect large 
enough to hold the whole of me. 

— And may I ask what that was ? — I said. 

— The Human sect, — the Master answered. — 
That has about room enough for me, — at present, I 
mean to say. 

— Including cannibals and all ? — said I. 

— 0, as to that, the eating of one's kind is a matter 
of taste, but the roasting of them has been rather more 
a specialty of our own particular belief than of any 
other I am acquainted with. If you broil a saint, I 
don't see why, if you have a mind, you should n't serve 
him up at your — 



176 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

Pop ! went the little piece of artillery. Don't tell 
me it was accident. I know better. You can't sup- 
pose for one minute that a boy like that one would 
time his interruptions so cleverly. Now it so happened 
that at that particular moment Dr, B. Franklin was 
not at the table. You may draw your own conclu- 
sions. I say nothing, but I think a good deal. 

— I came back to the Bunker Hill Monument. — I 
often think — I said — of the dynasty which is to 
reign in its shadow for some thousands of years, it 
may be. 

The " Man of Letters," so called, asked me, in a 
tone I did not exactly like, whether I expected to live 
long enough to see a monarchy take the place of a 
republic in this country. 

— No, — said I, — I was thinking of something 
very different. I was indulging a fancy of mine about 
the Man who is to sit at the foot of the monument for 
one, or it may be two or three thousand years. As 
long as the monument stands and there is a city near 
it, there will always be a man to take the names of 
visitors alid extract some small tribute from their pock- 
ets, I suppose. I sometimes get thinking of the long, 
unbroken succession of these men, until they come to 
look like one Man ; continuous in being, unchanging 
as the stone he watches, looking upon the successive 
generations of human beings as they come and go, and 
outliving all the dynasties of the world in all probabil- 
ity. It has come to such a pas§ that I never speak to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 177 

the Man of the Monument without wanting to take 
my hat off and feeling as if I were looking down a 
vista of twenty or thirty centuries. 

The " Man of Letters," so called, said, in a rather 
contemptuous way, I thought, that he had n't got so 
far as that. He was n't quite up to moral reflections 
on toll-men and ticket-takers. Sentiment was n't his 
tap. 

He looked round triumphantly for a response : but 
the Capitalist was a little hard of hearing just then ; 
the Register of Deeds was browsing on his food in the 
calm bovine abstraction of a quadruped, and paid no 
attention ; the Salesman had bolted his breakfast, and 
whisked himself away with that peculiar alacrity which 
belongs to the retail-dealer's assistant ; and the Mem- 
ber of the Haouse, who had sometimes seemed to be 
impressed with his " tahlented mahn's " air of supe- 
riority to the rest of us, looked as if he thought the 
speaker was not exactly parliamentary. So he failed 
to make his point, and reddened a little, and was not 
in the best humor, I thought, when he left the table. 
I hope he will not let off any of his irritation on our 
poor little Scheherazade ; but the truth is, the first 
person a man of this sort, (if he is what I think 
him) meets, when he is out of humor, has to be made 
a victim of, and I only hope our Young Gui will not 
have to play Jephthah's daughter. 

And that leads me to say, I cannot help thinking 
that the kind of criticism to which this Young Girl 

8* I, 



178 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

has been subjected from some person or other, who ia 
willing to be smart at her expense, is hurtful and not 
wholesome. The question is a delicate one. So many 
foolish persons are rushing into print, that it requires 
a kind of literary police to hold them back and keep 
them in order. Where there are mice there must be 
cats, and where there are rats we may think it worth 
our while to keep a terrier, who will give them a shake 
and let them drop, with all the mischief taken out of 
them. But the process is a rude and cruel one at 
best, and it too often breeds a love of destructiveness 
for its own sake in those who get their living by it. 
A poor poem or essay does not do much harm after 
all ; nobody reads it who is like to be seriously hurt 
by it. But a sharp criticism with a drop of witty 
venom in it stings a young author almost to death, 
and makes an old one uncomfortable to no purpose. 
If it were my business to sit in judgment on my neigh- 
bors, I would try to be courteous, at least, to those 
who had done any good service, but, above all, I 
would handle tenderly those young authors who are 
coming before the public in the flutter of their first or 
early appearance, and are in the trembling delirium of 
stage-fright already. Before you write that brilliant 
notice of some alliterative Angelina's book of verses, 
I wish you would try this experiment. 

Take half a sheet of paper and copy upon it any of 
Angelina's stanzas, - — the ones you were going to make 
fun of, if you will. Now go to your window, if it is a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 179 

still day, open it, and let the half-sheet of paper drop 
on the outside. How gently it falls through the soft 
air, always tending downwards, but sliding softly, from 
side to side, wavering, hesitating, balancing, until it 
settles as noiselessly as a snow-flake upon the all- 
receiving bosom of the earth ! Just such would have 
been the fate of poor Angelina's fluttering effort, if you 
had left it to itself. It would have slanted downward 
into oblivion so sweetly and softly that she would have 
never known when it reached that harmless consum- 
mation. 

Our epizoic literature is becoming so extensive that 
nobody is safe from its ad infinitum progeny. A man 
writes a book of criticisms. A Quarterly Review criti- 
cises the critic. A Monthly Magazine takes up the 
critic's critic. A Weekly Journal criticises the critic 
of the critic's critic, and a daily paper favors us with 
some critical remarks on the performance of the writer 
in the Weekly, who has criticised the critical notice in 
the Monthly of the critical essay in the Quarterly on 
the critical work we started with. And thus we see 
that as each flea " has smaller fleas that on him prey," 
even the critic himself cannot escape the common lot 
of being bitten. Whether all this is a blessing or a 
curse, like that one which made Pharaoh and all his 
household nm to their toilet-tables, is a question about 
which opinions might differ. The physiologists of the 
time of Moses — if there were vivisectors other than 
priests in those days — would probably have consid- 



180 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ered that other plague^ of the frogs, as a fortunate 
opportunity for science, as this poor little beast has 
been the souffre-douleur of experimenters and school- 
boys from time immemorial. 

But there is a form of criticism to which none will 
object. It is impossible to come before a public so 
alive with sensibilities as this we live in, with the 
smallest evidence of a sympathetic disposition, with- 
out making friends in a very unexpected way. Every- 
where there are minds tossing on the unquiet waves 
of doubt. If you confess to the same perplexities and 
uncertainties that torture them, they are grateful for 
your companionship. If you have groped your way 
out of the wilderness in which you were once wander- 
ing with them, they will follow your footsteps, it may 
be, and bless you as their deliverer. So, all at once, 
a writer finds he has a parish of devout listeners, 
scattered, it is true, beyond the reach of any sum- 
mons but that of a trumpet like the archangel's, to 
whom his slight discourse may be of more value than 
the exhortations they hear from the pulpit, if these 
last do not happen to suit their special needs. Young 
men with more ambition and intelligence than force 
of character, who have missed their first steps in life 
and are stumbling irresolute amidst vague aims and 
changing purposes, hold out their hands, imploring to be 
led into, or at least pointed towards, some path where 
they can find a firm foothold. Young women bom 
into a chilling atmosphere of circumstance which keeps 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 181 

all the buds of their nature unopened and always striv- 
ing to get to a ray of sunshine, if one finds its way to 
their neighborhood, tell their stories, sometimes simply 
and touchingly, sometimes in a more or less afibcted 
and rhetorical way, but still stories of defeated and 
disappointed instincts which ought to make any mod- 
erately impressible person feel very tenderly toward 
them. 

In speaking privately to these young persons, many 
of whom have literary aspirations, one should be very 
considerate of their human feelings. But addressing 
them collectively a few plain truths will not give any 
one of them much pain. Indeed, almost every indi- 
vidual among them will feel sure that he or she is an 
exception to those generalities which apply so weU to 
the rest. 

If I were a literary Pope sending out an Encyclical, 
I would tell these inexperienced persons that nothing 
is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift 
for a special and extraordinary endowment. The 
mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing are 
very wonderful, and if one had seen and studied them 
in his own person only, he might well think himself a 
prodigy. Everybody knows these and other bodily 
faculties are common gifts; but nobody except edi- 
tors and school-teachers and here and there a literary 
man knows how common is the capacity of rhyming 
and prattling in readable prose, especially among young 
women of a certain degree of education. In my char- 



182 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

acter of Pontiff, I should tell these young persons that 
most of them labored under a delusion. It is very 
hard to believe it ; one feels so full of intelligence and 
so decidedly superior to one's dull relations and school- 
mates; one writes so easily and the lines sound so 
prettily to one's self; there are such felicities of ex- 
pression, just like those we hear quoted from the 
great poets ; and besides one has been told by so 
many friends that all one had to do was to print and 
be famous ! Delusion, my poor dear, delusion at least 
nineteen times out of twenty, yes, ninety-nine times in 
a hundred. 

But as private father confessor, I always allow as 
much as I can for the one chance in the hundred. I 
try not to take away all hope, unless the case is clearly 
desperate, and then to direct the activities into some 
other channel. 

Using kind language, I can talk pretty freely. I 
have counselled more than one aspirant after literary 
fame to go back to his tailor's board or his lapstone. 
I have advised the dilettanti, whose foolish friends 
praised their verses or their stories, to give up all their 
deceptive dreams of making a name by their genius, 
and go to work in the study of a profession which 
asked only for the diligent use of average, ordinary 
talents. It is a very grave responsibility which these 
unknown correspondents throw upon their chosen 
counsellors. One whom you have never seen, who 
lives in a community of wlych you know nothing, 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 183 

sends you specimens more or less painfully volumi- 
nous of his writings, which he asks you to read over, 
think over, and pray over, and send back an answer 
informing him whether fame and fortune are awaiting 
him as the possessor of the wonderful gifts his writings 
manifest, and whether you advise him to leave all, — 
the shop he sweeps out every morning, the ledger he 
posts, the mortar in which he pounds, the bench at 
which he urges the reluctant plane, — and follow his 
genius whithersoever it may lead him. The next cor- 
respondent wants you to mark out a whole course of 
life for him, and the means of judgment he gives you 
are about as adequate as the brick which the simpleton 
of old carried round as an advertisement of the house 
he had to sell. My advice to all the young men that 
write to me depends somewhat on the handwriting 
and spelling. If these are of a certain character, and 
they have reached a mature age, I recommend some 
honest manual calling, such as they have very proba- 
bly been bred to, and which will, at least, give them a 
chance of becoming President of the United States by 
and by, if that is any object to them. What would 
you have done with the young person who called on 
me a good many years ago, — so many that he has 
probably forgotten his literary effort, — and read as 
specimens of his literary workmanship lines like those 
which I will favor you with presently ? He was an 
able-bodied, grown-up young person, whose ingenuous- 
ness interested me ; and I am sure if I thought he 



184 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

would ever be pained to see his maiden effort in print, I 
would deny myself the pleasure of submitting it to the 
reader. The following is an exact transcript of the 
lines he showed me, and which I took down on the 
spot : — 

" Are you in the vein for cider ? 

Are you in the tune for pork ? 

Hist ! for Betty 's cleared the larder 

And turned the pork to soap." 

Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden 
muse. Here was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in 
the direction of rhyme ; here was an honest transcript 
of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain ideal- 
izing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, 
mysterious instincts, impelling us even in the selection 
of our bodily sustenance. But I had to tell him that 
it wanted dignity of incident and grace of narrative, 
that there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of the 
light that never was and so forth. I did not say this 
in these very words, but I gave him to understand, 
without being too hard upon him, that he had better 
not desert his honest toil in pursuit of the poet's bays. 
This, it must be confessed, was a rather discouraging 
case. A young person like this may pierce, as the 
Frenchmen say, by and by, but the chances are all the 
other way. 

I advise aimless young men to choose some profes- 
sion without needless delay, and so get into a good 
strong current of human affajrs, and find themselves 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 185 

bound up in interests with a compact body of their 
fellow-men. 

I advise young women who write to me for counsel, 
— perhaps I do not advise them at all, only sympa- 
thize a little with them, and listen to what they have 
to say (eight closely written pages on the average, 
which I always read from beginning to end, thinking 
of the widow's cruse and myself in the character of 
Elijah) and — and— -come now, I don't believe Me- 
thuselah would tell you what he said in his letters to 
young ladies, written when he was in his nine hun- 
dredth and sixty-ninth year. 

But, dear me ! how much work all this private crit- 
icism involves ! An editor has only to say " respect- 
fully declined," and there is the end of it. But the 
confidential adviser is expected to give the reasons of 
his likes and dislikes in detail, and sometimes to enter 
into an argument for their support. That is more 
than any martyr can stand, but what trials he must go 
through, as it is ! Great bundles of manuscripts, verse 
or prose, which the recipient is expected to read, per- 
haps to recommeiid to a publisher, at any rate to 
express a well-digested and agreeably flavored opinion 
about ; which opinion, nine times out of ten, disguise 
it as we may, has to be a bitter draught ; every form 
of egotism, conceit, false sentiment, hunger for noto- 
riety, and eagerness for display of anserine plumage 
before the admiring public ; — all these come in by 
mail or express, covered with postage-stamps of so 



186 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

much more cost than the value of the waste words 
they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and 
change color at the very sight of a package, and to 
dread the postman's knock as if it were that of the 
other visitor whose naked knuckles rap at every door. 

Still there are experiences which go far towards 
repaying all these inflictions. My last young man's 
case looked desperate enough ; some of his sails had 
blown from the rigging, some were backing in the 
wind, and some were flapping and shivering, but I 
told him which way to head, and to my surprise he 
promised to do just as I directed, and I do not doubt 
is under full sail at this moment. 

What if I should tell my last, my very recent expe- 
rience with the other sex ? I received a paper con- 
taining the inner history of a young woman's life, the 
evolution of her consciousness from its earliest record 
of itself, written so thoughtfully, so sincerely, with so 
much firmness and yet so much delicacy, with such 
truth of detail and such grace in the manner of telling, 
that I finished the long manuscript almost at a sitting, 
with a pleasure rarely, almost never experienced in 
voluminous communications which one has to spell 
out of handwriting. This was from a correspondent 
who made my acquaintance by letter when she was 
little more than a child, some years ago. How easy 
at that early period to have silenced her by indiffer- 
ence, to have wounded her by a careless epithet, per- 
haps even to have crushed her as one puts his heel on 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 187 

a weed ! A very little encouragement kept her from 
despondency, and brought back one of those overflows 
of gratitude which make one more ashamed of himself 
for being so overpaid, than he would be for having 
committed any of the lesser sins. But what pleased 
me most in the paper lately received was to see how 
far the writer had outgrown the need of any encour- 
agement of mine ; that she had strengthened out of 
her tremulous questionings into a self-reliance and self- 
poise which I had hardly dared to anticipate for her. 
Some of my readers who are also writers have very 
probably had more numerous experiences of this kind 
than I can lay claim to ; self-revelations from unknown 
and sometimes nameless friends, who write from 
strange corners where the winds have wafted some 
stray words of theirs which have lighted in the minds 
and reached the hearts of those to whom they were as 
the angel that stirred the pool of Bethesda. Perhaps 
this is the best reward authorship brings ; it may not 
imply much talent or literary excellence, but it means 
that your way of thinking and feeling is just what 
some one of your fellow-creatures needed. 

— I have been putting into shape, according to his 
request, some further passages from the young Astron- 
omer's manuscript, some of which the reader will have 
a chance to read if he is so disposed. The conflict in 
the young man's mind between the desire for fame and 
the sense of its emptiness as compared with nobler 



188 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

aims has set me thinking about the subject from a 
somewhat humbler point of view. As I am in the 
habit of telling you, Beloved, many of my thoughts, as 
well as of repeating what was said at our table, you 
may read what follows as if it were addressed to you 
in the course of an ordinary conversation, where I 
claimed rather more than my share, as I am afraid I 
am a little in the habit of doing. 

I suppose we all, those of us who write in verse or 
prose, have the habitual feeling that we should like to 
be remembered. It is to be awake when all of those 
who were round us have been long wrapped in slum- 
ber. It is a pleasant thought enough that the name 
by which we have been called shall be familiar on the 
lips of those who come after us, and the thoughts that 
wrought themselves out in our intelligence, the emo- 
tions that trembled through our frames, shall live 
themselves over again in the minds and hearts of 
others. 

But is there not something of rest, of calm, in the 
thought of gently and gradually fading away out of 
human remembrance ? What line have we written 
that was on a level with our conceptions ? What page 
of ours that does not betray some weakness we would 
fain have left unrecorded ? To become a classic and 
share the life of a language is to be ever open to critic 
cisms, to comparisons, to the caprices of successive 
generations, to be called into court and stand a trial 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 189 

before a new jury, once or more than once in every 
century. To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with the 
undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills 
and heats, the blasts, the sleet, the dust, which assail 
in endless succession that shadow of a man which we 
call his reputation. The line which dying we could 
wish to blot has been blotted out for us by a hand so 
tender, so patient, so used to its kindly task, that the 
page looks as fair as if it had never borne the record 
of our infirmity or our transgression. And then so few 
would be wholly content with their legacy of fame. 
You remember poor Monsieur Jacques's complaint of 
the favoritism shown to Monsieur Berthier, — it is in 
that exquisite " Week in a French Country-House." 
" Have you seen his room ? Have you seen how large 
it is ? Twice as large as mine ! He has two jugs, a 
large one and a little one. I have only one small one. 
And a tearservice and a gilt Cupid on the top of his 
looking-glass." The famous survivor of himself has 
had his features preserved in a medallion, and the slice 
of his countenance seems clouded with the thought 
that it does not belong to a bust ; the bust ought to 
look happy in its niche, but the statue opposite makes 
it feel as if it had been cheated out of half its person- 
ality, and the statue looks uneasy because another 
stands on a loftier pedestal. But " Ignotus " and 
" Miserrimus " are of the great majority in that vast 
assembly, that House of Commons whose members are 
all peers, where to be forgotten is the standing rule. 



190 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The dignity of a silent memory is not to be under- 
valued. Fame is after all a kind of rude handling, 
and a name that is offcen on vulgar lips seems to bor- 
row something not to be desired, as the paper money 
that passes from hand to hand gains somewhat which 
is a loss thereby. sweet, tranquil refage of oblivion, 
so far as earth is concerned, for us poor blundering, 
stammering, misbehaving creatures who cannot turn 
over a leaf of our life's diary without feeling thankful 
that its failure can no longer stare us in the face ! 
Not unwelcome shall be the baptism of dust which 
hides forever the name that was given in the baptism 
of water ! We shall have good company whose names 
are left unspoken by posterity. ^' Who knows whether 
the best of men be known, or whether there be not 
more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand 
remembered in the known account of time ? The 
greater part must be content to be as though they had 
not been ; to be found in the register of God, not in 
the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the 
first story before the flood, and the recorded names 
ever since contain not one living century." 

I have my moods about such things as the young 
Astronomer has, as we all have. There are times 
when the thought of becoming utterly nothing to the 
world we knew so well and loved so much is painful 
and oppressive ; we gasp as if in a vacuum, missing the 
atmosphere of life we have so long been in the habit 
of breathing. Not the less are there moments when 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 191 

the aching need of repose comes over us and the 
requiescat in pace, heathen benediction as it is, sounds 
more sweetly in our ears than all the promises that 
Fame can hold out to us. 

I wonder whether it ever occurred to you to reflect 
upon another horror there must be in leaving a name 
behind you. Think what a horrid piece of work the 
biographers make of a man's private history ! Just 
imagine the subject of one of those extraordinary fic- 
tions called biographies coming back and reading the 
life of himself, written very probably by somebody or 
other who thought he could turn a penny by doing it, 
and having the pleasure of seeing 

" His little bark attendant sail, 
Pursue the triumph and partake the gale." 

The ghost of the person condemned to walk the earth 
in a biography glides into a public library, and goes to 
the shelf where his mummied life lies in its paper cere- 
ments. I can see the pale shadow glancing through 
the pages and hear the comments that shape them- 
selves in the bodiless intelligence as if they were made 
vocal by living lips. 

" Born in July, 177Q I " And my honored father 
killed at the battle of Bunker Hill ! Atrocious libel- 
ler ! to slander one's family at the start after such a 
fashion ! 

" The death of his parents left him in charge of his 



192 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Aunt Nancy, whose tender care took the place of 
those parental attentions which should have guided 
and protected his infant years, and consoled him for 
the severity of another relative." 

— Aunt Nancy! It was Aunt Betsey, you fool! 
Aunt Nancy used to — she has been dead these eighty 
years, so there is no use in mincing matters — she 
used to keep a bottle and a stick, and when she had 
been tasting a drop out of the bottle the stick used to 
come off the shelf and I had to taste that. And here 
she is made a saint of, and poor Aunt Betsey, that did 
everything for me, is slandered by implication as a 
horrid tyrant ! 

" The subject of this commemorative history was 
remarkable for a precocious development of intelli- 
gence. An old nurse who saw him at the very earliest 
period of his existence is said to have spoken of him as 
one of the most promising infants she had seen in her 
long experience. At school he was equally remark- 
able, and at a tender age he received a paper adorned 
with a cut, inscribed Reward of Merit." 

— I don't doubt the nurse said that, — there were 
several promising children born about that time. As for 
cuts, I got more from the schoolmaster's rattan than in 
any other shape. Didn't one of my teachers split a 
Gunter's scale into three pieces over the palm of my 
hand? And didn't I grin when I saw the pieces fly? 
No humbug, now, about my boyhood ! 

^'His personal appearance was not singularly pre- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 193 

possessing. Inconspicuous in stature and unattract- 
ive in features — " 

— You misbegotten son of an ourang and grandson 
of an ascidian (ghosts keep up with science, you ob- 
serve), v^hat business have you to be holding up my 
person to the contempt of my posterity ? Have n't I 
been sleeping for this many a year in quiet, and don't 
the dandelions and buttercups look as yellow over me 
as over the best-looking neighbor I have in the dor- 
mitory ? Why do you want to people the minds of 
everybody that reads your good-for-nothing libel which 
you call a " biography " with your impudent carica- 
tures of a man who was a better-looking fellow than 
yourself, I '11 bet you ten to one, a man whom his 
Latin tutor called formosuB puer when he was only a 
freshman ? If that 's what it means to make a repu- 
tation, — to leave your character and your person, and 
the good name of your sainted relatives, and all you 
were, and all you had and thought and felt, so far as 
can be gathered by digging you out of your most pri- 
vate records, to be manipulated and bandied about 
and cheapened in the literary market as a chicken or 
a turkey or a goose is handled and bargained over at 
a provision stall, is n't it better to be content v^th the 
honest blue slate-stone and its inscription informing 
posterity that you were a worthy citizen and a re- 
spected father of a family? 

— I should like to see any man's biography with 
corrections and emendations by his ghost. We don't 

9 M 



194 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

know each other's secrets quite so well as we flatter 
ourselves we do. We don't always know our own 
secrets as well as we might. You have seen a tree 
with difierent grafts upon it, an apple or a pear tree 
we will say. In the late summer months the fruit on 
one bough will ripen ; I remember just such a tree, 
and the early ripening fruit was the Jargonelle. By 
and by the fruit of another bough vrill begin to come 
into condition ; the lovely Saint Michael, as I remem- 
ber, grew on the same stock as the Jargonelle in the 
tree I am thinking of; and then, when these have all 
fallen or been gathered, another, we will say the Win- 
ter Nelis, has its turn, and so, out of the same juices 
have come in succession fruits of the most varied as- 
pects and flavors. It is the same thing with ourselves, 
but it takes us a long while to find it out. The vari- 
ous inherited instincts ripen in succession. You may 
be nine tenths paternal at one period of your life, and 
nine tenths maternal at another. All at once the 
traits of some immediate ancestor may come to ma- 
turity unexpectedly on one of the branches of your 
character, just as your features at different periods of 
your life betray different resemblances to your nearer 
or more remote relatives. 

But I want you to let me go back to the Bunker 
Hill Monument and the dynasty of twenty or thirty 
centuries whose successive representatives are to sit 
in the gate, like the Jewish monarchs, while the peo- 
ple shall come by hundreds and by thousands to visit 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 195 

the memorial shaft until the story of Bunker's Hill is 
as old as that of Marathon. 

Would not one like to attend twenty consecutive 
soirees, at each one of which the lion of the party 
should be the Man of the Monument, at the beginning 
of each century, all the way, we mil say, from Anno 
Domini 2000 to Ann. Dom. 4000, — or, if you think 
the style of dating will be changed, say to Ann. Dar- 
winii (we can keep A. D. you see) 1872 ? Will the 
Man be of the Indian type, as President Samuel Stan- 
hope Smith and others have supposed the transplanted 
European will become by and by ? Will he have short- 
ened down to four feet and a little more, like the Es- 
quimaux, or will he have been bred up to seven feet 
by the use of new chemical diets, ozonized and other- 
wise improved atmospheres, and animal fertilizers? 
Let us summon him in imagination and ask him a few 
questions. 

Is n't it like splitting a toad out of a rock to think 
of this man of nineteen or twenty centuries hence com- 
ing out from his stony dwelling-place and speaking 
with us ? What are the questions we should ask him ? 
He has but a few minutes to stay. Make out your 
own list ; I wiU set down a few that come up to me 
as I write. 

— What is the prevalent religious creed of civilizar- 
tion ? 

— Has the planet met with any accident of impor- 
tance ? 



196 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— How general is the republican form of govern- 
ment ? 

— Do men fly yet ? 

— Has the universal language come into use ? 

— Is there a new fuel since the English coal-mines 
have given out ? 

— Is the euthanasia a recognized branch of medical 
science ? 

— Is the oldest inhabitant still living ? 

— Is the Daily Advertiser still published ? 

— And the Evening Transcript ? 

— Is there much inquiry for the works of a writer 
of the nineteenth century (Old Style) by — the — 
name of — of — * 

My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I cannot 
imagine the putting of that question without feeling the 
tremors which shake a wooer as he falters out the words 
the answer to which will make him happy or wretched. 

Whose works was I going to question him about, 
do you ask me ? 

0, the writings of a friend of mine, much esteemed 
by his relatives and others. But it 's of no conse- 
quence, after all ; I think he says he does not care 
much for posthumous reputation. 

I find something of the same interest in thinking 
about one of the boarders at our table that I find in 
my waking dreams concerning the Man of the Monu- 
ment. This personage is the Register of Deeds. He 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 197 

is an unemotional character, living in his business al- 
most as exclusively as the Scarabee, but without any 
of that eagerness and enthusiasm which belongs to 
our scientific specialist. His work is largely, princi- 
pally, I may say, mechanical. He has developed, 
however, a certain amount of taste for the antiquities 
of his department, and once in a while brings out 
some curious result of his investigations into ancient 
documents. He too belongs to a dynasty which will 
last as long as there is such a thing as property in land 
and dwellings. When that is done away with, and we 
return to the state of villanage, holding our tenement- 
houses, all to be of the same pattern, of the State, — 
that is to say, of the Tammany Ring which is to take 
the place of the feudal lord, — the office of Register 
of Deeds will, I presume, become useless, and the 
dynasty will be deposed. 

As we grow older we think more and more of old 
persons and of old things and places. As to old per- 
sons, it seemed as if we never knew how much they 
had to tell until we are old ourselves and they have 
been gone twenty or thirty years. Once in a while 
we come upon some survivor of his or her generation 
that we have overlooked, and feel as if we had recov- 
ered one of the lost books of Livy or fished up the 
golden candlestick from the ooze of the Tiber. So it 
was the other day after my reminiscences of the old 
gambrel-roofed house and its visitors. They found an 
echo in the recollections of one of the brightest and 



198 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Kveliest of my suburban friends, whose memory is 
exact about everything except her own age, which, 
there can be no doubt, she makes out a score or two 
of years more than it really is. Still she was old 
enough to touch some lights — and a shadow or two 
— into the portraits I had drawn, which made me 
wish that she and not I had been the artist who 
sketched the pictures. Among the lesser regrets that 
mingle with graver sorrows for the friends of an earlier 
generation we have lost, are our omissions to ask them so 
many questions they could have answered easily enough, 
and would have been pleased to be asked. There ! 
I say to myself sometimes, in an absent mood, I must 
ask her about that. But she of whom I am now think- 
ing has long been beyond the reach of any earthly ques- 
tioning, and I sigh to think how easily I could have 
learned some fact which I should have been happy to 
have transmitted with pious care to those who are to 
come after me. How many times I have heard her 
quote the line about blessings brightening as they take 
their flight, and how true it proves in many little ways 
that one never thinks of until it is too late ! 

The Register of Deeds is not himself advanced in 
years. But he borrows an air of antiquity from the 
ancient records which are stored in his sepulchral 
archives. I love to go to his ossuary of dead transac- 
tions, as I would visit the catacombs of Rome or 
Paris. It is like wandering up the Nile to stray 
among the shelves of his monumental folios. Here 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 199 

stands a series of volumes, extending over a consider- 
able number of years, all of which volumes are in his 
handwriting. But as you go backward there is a 
break, and you come upon the writing of another per- 
son, who was getting old apparently, for it is beginning 
to be a little shaky, and then you know that you have 
gone back as far as the last days of his predecessor. 
Thirty or forty years more carry you to the time when 
this incumbent began the duties of his office ; his hand 
was steady then ; and the next volume beyond it in 
date betrays the work of a still different writer. All 
this interests me, but I do not see how it is going to 
interest my reader. I do not feel very happy about 
the Register of Deeds. What can I do with him? 
Of what use is he going to be in my record of what I 
have seen and heard at the breakfast-table ? The fact 
of his being one of the boarders was not so important 
that I was obliged to speak of him, and I might just 
as well have drawn on my imagination and not allowed 
this dummy to take up the room which another guest 
might have profitably filled at our breakfast-table. 

I suppose he will prove a superfluity, but I have got 
him on my hands, and I mean that he shaU be as 
little in the way as possible. One always comes across 
people in actual life who have no particular business 
to be where we find them, and whose right to be at all 
is somewhat questionable. 

I am not going to get rid of the Register of Deeds 
by putting him out of the way ; but I confess I do not 



200 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

see what service he is going to be of to me in my 
record. I have often found, however, that the Dis- 
poser of men and things understands much better than 
we do how to place his pawns and other pieces on the 
chess-board of life. A fish more or less in the ocean 
does not seem to amount to much. It is not extrava- 
gant to say that any one fish may be considered a 
supernumerary. But when Captain Coram's ship 
sprung a leak and the carpenter could not stop it, and 
the passengers had made up their minds that it was 
all over v^th them, all at once, without any apparent 
reason, the pumps began gaining on the leak, and the 
sinking ship to lift herself out of the abyss which was 
swallowing her up. And what do you think it was 
that saved the ship, and Captain Coram, and so in due 
time gave to London that Foundling Hospital which 
he endowed, and under the floor of which he lies 
buried? Why, it was that very supernumerary fish, 
which we held of so little account, but which had 
wedged itself into the rent of the yawning planks, 
and served to keep out the water until the leak was 
finally stopped. 

I am very sure it was Captain Coram, but I almost 
hope it was somebody else, in order to give some poor 
fellow who is lying in wait for the periodicals a chance 
to correct me. That will make him happy for a 
month, and besides, he will not want to pick a quarrel 
about anything else if he has that splendid triumph. 
You remember Alcibiades and his dog's tail. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 201 

Here you have the extracts I spoke of from the 
manuscript placed in my hands for revision and emen- 
dation. I can understand these alternations of feeling 
in a young person who has been long absorbed in a 
single pursuit, and in whom the human instincts which 
have been long silent are now beginning to find ex- 
pression. I know well what he wants ; a great deal 
better, I think, than he knows himself. 

WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. 

II. 

Brief glimpses of the briglat celestial spheres, 
False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, 
Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, 
The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, 
The sinking of the downward-falling star, — 
All these are pictures of the changing moods 
Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul. 

Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock. 
Prey to the vulture of a vast desire 
That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands 
And steal a moment's freedom from the beak, 
The cHnging talons and the shadowing plumes ; 
Then comes the false enchantress, with her song ; 
" Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust 
Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies I 
Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for thee. 
Unchanging as the belt Orion wears. 
Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred Crown, 
The spangled stream of Berenice's hair ! '* 
9* 



202 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

And so she twines the fetters with the flowers 

Around my yielding hmbs, and the fierce bird 

Stoops to his quarry, — then to feed his rage 

Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood 

And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding night 

Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek, 

And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes. 

AH for a line in some unheeded scroll ; 

All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns, 

" Here lies a restless wretch beneath a clod 

Where squats the jealous nightmare men call Fame ! " 

I marvel not at him who scorns his kind 

And thinks not sadly of the time foretold 

When the old hulk we tread shall be a wreck, 

A slag, a cinder drifting through the sky 

Without its crew of fools ! We live too long 

And even so are not content to die. 

But load the mould that covers up our bones 

With stones that stand like beggars by the road 

And show death's grievous wound and ask for tears ; 

Write our great books to teach men who we are, 

Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase 

The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray 

For alms of memory with the after time. 

Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear 

Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold 

And the moist life of all that breathes shall die ; 

Or as the new-born seer, perchance more wise, 

Would have us deem, before its growing mass. 

Pelted with star-dust, stoned with meteor-balls, 

Heats like a hammered anvil, till at last 

Man and his works and all that stirred itself 

Of its own motion, in the fiery glow 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 203 

Turns to a flaming vapor, and our orb 

Shines a new sun for earths that shall be born. 

I am as old as Egypt to myself, 

Brother to them that squared the pyramids 

By the same stars T watch. I read the page 

Where erery letter is a glittering world. 

With them who looked from Shinar's clay-built towerSj 

Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea 

Had missed the fallen sister of the seven. 

I dwell in spaces vague, remote, unknown, 

Save to the silent few, who, leaving earth, 

Quit all communion with their Hving time. 

I lose myself in that ethereal void, 

TiU I have tired my wings and long to fill 

My breast with denser air, to stand, to walk 

With eyes not raised above my fellow-men. 

Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, 

I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds 

I visit as mine own for one poor patch 

Of this dull spheroid and a little breath 

To shape in word or deed to serve my kind. 

Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep. 
Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong. 
Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught 
The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, 
As he whose willing victim is himself. 
Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul ? 



204 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



VIL 



I WAS very sure that the Old Master was hard 
at work about something, — he is always very 
busy with something, — but I mean something par- 
ticular. 

Whether it was a question of history or of cosmog- 
ony, or whether he was handling a test-tube or a blow- 
pipe ; what he was about I did not feel sure ; but I 
took it for granted that it was some crucial question 
or other he was at work on, some point bearing on 
the thought of the time. For the Master, I have 
observed, is pretty sagacious in striking for the points 
where his work will be like to tell. We all know that 
class of scientific laborers to whom all facts are alike 
nourishing mental food^ and who seem to exercise no 
choice whatever, provided only they can get hold of 
these same indiscriminate facts in quantity sufficient. 
They browse on them, as the animal to which they 
would not like to be compared browses on his thistles. 
But the Master knows the movement of the age he 
belongs to; and if he seems to be busy with what 
looks like a small piece of trivial experimenting, one 
may feel pretty sure that he knows what he is about, 
and that his minute operations are looking to a result 
that will help him towards attaming his great end in 
life, — an insight, so far as his faculties and opportu- 
nities will allow, into that order of things which he 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 205 

believes he can study with some prospect of taking in 
its significance. 

I became so anxious to know what particular mat- 
ter he was busy with, that I had to call upon him to 
satisfy my curiosity. It was with a little trepidation 
that I knocked at his door. I felt a good deal as one 
might have felt on disturbing an alchemist at his work, 
at the very moment, it might be, when he was about 
to make projection. 

— Come in ! — said the Master in his grave, mas- 
sive tones. 

I passed through the library with him into a little 
room evidently devoted to his experiments. 

— You have come just at the right moment, — he 
said. — Your eyes are better than mine. I have been 
looking at this flask, and I should like to have you 
look at it. 

It was a small matrass, as one of the elder chemists 
would have called it, containing a fluid, and hermeti- 
cally sealed. He held it up at the window ; perhaps 
you remember the physician holding a flask to the 
light in Gerard Douw's " Femme hydropique " ; I 
thought of that fine figure as I looked at him. 
— Look ! — said he, — is it clear or cloudy ? 

— You need not ask me that, — I answered. — It 
is very plainly turbid. I should think that some sedi- 
ment had been shaken up in it. What is it, Elixir 
Vitcd or Atirum potabile ? 

— Something that means more than alchemy ever 



206 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

did ! Boiled just three hours, and as clear as a bell 
until within the last few days ; since then has been 
clouding up. 

— I began to form a pretty shrewd guess at the 
meaning of all this, and to think I knew very nearly 
what was coming next. I was right in my conjecture. 
The Master broke off the sealed end of his little flask, 
took out a small portion of the fluid on a glass rod, 
and placed it on a slip of glass in the usual way for a 
microscopic examination. 

— One thousand diameters, — he said, as he placed 
it on the stage of the microscope. — We shall find 
signs of life, of course. — He bent over the instrument 
and looked but an instant. 

— There they are ! — he exclaimed, — look in. 

I looked in and saw some objects not very unlike 
these : — 

— *.^^- o o 

-^^ <^ Oq 

The straight linear bodies were darting backward and 
forward in every direction. The wavy ones were 
wriggling about like eels or water-snakes. The round 
ones were spinning on their axes and rolling in every 
direction. All of them were in a state of incessant 
activity, as if perpetually seeking something and never 
finding it. 

They are tough, the germs of these little bodies, — 
said the Master. — Three hours' boiling has n't killed 
'em. Now, then, let us see what has been the effect 
of BIX hours' boiling. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 207 

He took up another flask just like the first, contain- 
ing fluid and hermetically sealed in the same way. 

— Boiled just three hours longer than the other, — 
he said, — six hours in all. This is the experimentum 
cruets. Do you see any cloudiness in it ? 

— Not a sign of it ; it is as clear as crystal, except 
that there may be a little sediment at the bottom. 

— That is nothing. The liquid is clear. We shall 
find no signs of life. — He put a minute drop of the 
liquid under the microscope as before. Nothing stirred. 
Nothing to be seen but a clear circle of light. We 
looked at it again and again, but with the same result. 

— Six hours kill 'em all, according to this experi- 
ment, — said the Master. — Good as far as it goes. 
One more negative result. Do you know what would 
have happened if that liquid had been clouded, and 
we had found life in the sealed flask? Sir, if that 
liquid had held life in it the Vatican would have 
trembled to hear it, and there would have been 
anxious questionings and ominous whisperings in the 
halls of Lambeth palace ! The accepted cosmogonies 
on trial, sir ! Traditions, sanctities, creeds, ecclesiasti- 
cal establishments, all shaking to know whether my 
little sixpenny flask of fluid looks muddy or not ! I 
don't know whether to laugh or shudder. The 
thought of an cecumenical council having its leading 
feature dislocated by my trifling experiment! The 
thought, again, of the mighty revolution in human 
beliefs and afiairs that might grow out of the same 



208 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

insignificant little phenomenon. A wineglassful of 
clear liquid growing muddy. If we had found a wrig- 
gle, or a zigzag, or a shoot from one side to the other, 
in this last flask, what a scare there would have been, 
to be sure, in the schools of the prophets ! Talk about 
your megatherium and your megalosaurus, — what are 
these to the bacterium and the vibrio ? These are the 
dreadful monsters of to-day. If they show themselves 
where they have no business, the little rascals frighten 
honest folks worse than ever people were frightened 
by the Dragon of Rhodes ! 

The Master gets going sometimes, there is no deny- 
ing it, until his imagination runs away with him. He 
had been trying, as the reader sees, one of those 
curious experiments in spontaneous generation, as it is 
called, which have been so often instituted of late 
years, and by none more thoroughly than by that 
eminent American student of nature whose process he 
had imitated with a result like his. 

We got talking over these matters among us the 
next morning at the breakfast-table. 

We must agree they could n't stand six hours' boil- 
ing, — I said. 

— Good for the Pope of Rome ! — exclaimed the 
Master. 

— The Landlady drew back with a certain expres- 
sion of dismay in her countenance. She hoped he did 
n't want the Pope to make any more converts in this 
country. She had heard a sermon only last Sabbath. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 209 

and the minister had made it out, she thought, as 
plain as could be, that the Pope was the Man of Sin 
and that the Church of Rome was — Well, there 
was very strong names applied to her in Scripture. 

What was good for the Pope was good for your 
minister, too, my dear madam, — said the Master. — 
Good for everybody that is afraid of what people 
call " science." If it should prove that dead things 
come to life of themselves, it would be awkward, you 
know, because then somebody will get up and say if 
one dead thing made itself alive another might, and so 
perhaps the earth peopled itself without any help. 
Possibly the difficulty would n't be so great as many 
people suppose. We might perhaps find room for a 
Creator after all, as we do now, though we see a little 
brown seed grow till it sucks up the juices of half an 
acre of ground, apparently all by its own inherent 
power. That does not stagger us ; I am not sure that 
it would if Mr. Crosse's or Mr. Weekes's acarus should 
show himself all of a sudden, as they said he did, in 
certain mineral mixtures acted on by electricity. 

The Landlady was off soundings, and looking vacant 
enough by this time. 

The Master turned to me. — Don't think too much 
of the result of our one experiment. It means some- 
thing, because it confirms those other experiments of 
which it was a copy ; but we must remember that a 
hundred negatives don't settle such a question. Life 
does get into the world somehow. You don't suppose 



210 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Adam had tlie cutaneous unpleasantness politely called 
psora, do you ? 

— Hardly, — I answered. — He must have been a 
walking hospital if he carried all the maladies about 
him which have plagued his descendants. 

— Well, then, how did the little beast which is 
peculiar to that special complaint intrude himself into 
the order of things ? You don't suppose there was a 
special act of creation for the express purpose of 
bestowing that little wretch on humanity, do you ? 

I thought, on the whole, I would n't answer that 
question. 

— You and I are at work on the same problem, — 
said the young Astronomer to the Master. — I have 
looked into a microscope now and then, and I have 
seen that perpetual dancing about of minute atoms in 
a fluid, which you call molecular motion. Just so, 
when I look through my telescope I see the star-dust 
whirling about in the infinite expanse of ether ; or if I 
do not see its motion, I know that it is only on ac- 
count of its immeasurable distance. Matter and 
motion everywhere ; void and rest nowhere. You ask 
why your restless microscopic atoms may not come 
together and become self-conscious and self-moving 
organisms. I ask why my telescopic star-dust may 
not come together and grow and organize into habit- 
able worlds, — the ripened fruit on the branches of 
the tree Yggdrasil, if I may borrow from our friend 
the Poet's province. It frightens people, though, to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 211 

hear the suggestion that worlds shape themselves from 
star-mist. It does not trouble them at all to see the 
watery spheres that round themselves into being out 
of the vapors floating over us ; they are nothing but 
rain-drops. But if a planet can grow as a rain-drop 
grows, why then — . It was a great comfort to these 
timid folk when Lord Rosse's telescope resolved cer- 
tain nebulae into star-clusters. Sir John Herschel 
would have told them that this made little difference 
in accounting for the formation of worlds by aggrega- 
tion, but at any rate it was a comfort to them. 

— These people have always been afraid of the 
astronomers, — said the Master. — They were shy, 
you know, of the Copernican system, for a long while ; 
well they might be with an oubliette waiting for them 
if they ventured to think that the earth moved round 
the sun. Science settled that point finally for them, 
at length, and then it was all right, — when there was 
no use in disputing the fact any longer. By and by 
geology began turning up fossils that told extraor- 
dinary stories about the duration of life upon our 
planet. What subterfuges were not used to get rid 
of their evidence ! Think of a man seeing the fossil- 
ized skeleton of an animal split out of a quarry, his 
teeth worn down by mastication, and the remains of 
food still visible in his interior, and, in order to get rid 
of a piece of evidence contrary to the traditions he 
holds to, seriously maintaining that this skeleton never 
belonged to a living creature, but was created w^itli 



212 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

just these appearances ; a make-believe, a sham, a 
Barnum's-mermaid contrivance to amuse its Creator 
and impose upon his intelligent children ! And now 
people talk about geological epochs and hundreds of 
millions of years in the planet's history as calmly as if 
they were discussing the age of their deceased great- 
grandmothers. Ten or a dozen years ago people said 
Sh ! Sh ! if you ventured to meddle with any question 
supposed to involve a doubt of the generally accepted 
Hebrew traditions. To-day such questions are recog- 
nized as perfectly fair subjects for general conversation ; 
not in the basement story, perhaps, or among the rank 
and file of the curbstone congregations, but among 
intelligent and educated persons. You may preach 
about them in your pulpit, you may lecture about 
them, you may talk about them with the first sensible- 
looking person you happen to meet, you may write 
magazine articles about them, and the editor need not 
expect to receive remonstrances from angry subscribers 
and withdrawals of subscriptions, as he would have 
been sure to not a great many years ago. Why, you 
may go to a tear-party where the clergyman's wife 
shows her best cap and his daughters display their 
shining ringlets, and you will hear the company dis- 
cussing the Darwinian theory of the origin of the 
human race as if it were as harmless a question as that 
of the lineage of a spinster's lapdog. You may see a 
fine lady who is as particular in her genuflections as 
any Buddhist or Mahometan saint in his manifestations 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 213 

of reverence, who will talk over the anthropoid ape, 
the supposed founder of the family to which we be- 
long, and even go back with you to the acephalous 
mollusk, first cousin to the clams and mussels, whose 
rudimental spine was the hinted prophecy of humanity ; 
all this time never dreaming, apparently, that what 
she takes for a matter of curious speculation involves 
the whole future of human progress and destiny. 

I can't help thinking that if we had talked as freely 
as we can and do now in the days of the first boarder 
at this table, — I mean the one who introduced it to 
the public, — it would have sounded a good deal 
more aggressively than it does now. — The Old Mas- 
ter got rather warm in talking ; perhaps the conscious- 
ness of having a number of listeners had something to 
do with it. 

— This whole business is an open question, — he 
said, — and there is no use in saying, " Hush ! don't 
talk about such things ! " People do talk about 'em 
everywhere ; and if they don't talk about 'em they 
think about 'em, and that is worse, — if there is any- 
thing bad about such questions, that is. If for the 
Fall of man, science comes to substitute the RISE of 
man, sir, it means the utter disintegration of all the 
spiritual pessimisms which have been like a spasm in 
the heart and a cramp in the intellect of men for 
so many centuries. And yet who dares to say that it 
is not a perfectly legitimate and proper question to be 



214 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

discussed, without the slightest regard to the fears or 
the threats of Pope or prelate ? 

Sir, I believe, — the Master rose from his chair as 
he spoke, and said in a deep and solemn tone, but 
without any declamatory vehemence, — sir, I believe 
that we are at this moment in what will be recognized 
not many centuries hence as one of the late watches 
in the night of the dark ages. There is a twilight ray, 
beyond question. We know something of the universe, 
a very little, and, strangely enough, we know most of 
what is farthest from us. We have weighed the 
planets and analyzed the flames of the sun and stars. 
We predict their movements as if they were machines 
we ourselves had made and regulated. We know a 
good deal about the earth on which we live. But the 
study of man has been so completely subjected to our 
preconceived opinions, that we have got to begin all 
over again. We have studied anthropology through 
theology ; we have now to begin the study of theology 
through anthropology. Until we have exhausted the 
human element in every form of belief, and that can 
only be done by what we may call comparative spiritual 
anatomy, we cannot begin to deal with the alleged 
extra-human elements without blundering into all 
imaginable puerilities. If you think for one moment 
that there is not a single religion in the world which 
does not come to us through the medium of a pre- 
existing language ; and if you remember that this lan- 
guage embodies absolutely nothing but human covioep- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 215 

tions and human passions, you will see at once that 
every religion pre-supposes its own elements as already 
existing in those to whom it is addressed. I once 
went to a church in London and heard the famous 
Edward Irving preach, and heard some of his congre- 
gation speak in the strange words characteristic of 
their miraculous gift of tongues. I had a respect for 
the logical basis of this singular phenomenon. I have 
always thought it was natural that any celestial mes- 
sage should demand a language of its own, only to be 
understood by divine illumination. All human words 
tend, of course, to stop short in human meaning. And 
the more I hear the most sacred terms employed, the 
more I am satisfied that they have entirely and radi- 
cally different meanings in the minds of those who use 
them. Yet they deal with them as if they were as 
definite as mathematical quantities or geometrical 
figures. What would become of arithmetic if the 
figure 2 meant three for one man and five for another 
and twenty for a third, and all the other numerals 
were in the same way variable quantities ? Mighty 
intelligent correspondence business men would have 
with each other ! But how is this any worse than the 
difference of opinion which led a famous clergyman to 
say to a brother theologian, " 0, I see, my dear sir, 
your God is my Devil." 

Man has been studied proudly, contemptuously, 
rather, from the point of view supposed to be authorita- 
tively settled. The self-sufficiency of egotistic natures 



216 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

was never more fully shown than in the expositions of 
the worthlessness and wretchedness of their fellow-crea- 
tures given by the dogmatists who have " gone back/' 
as the vulgar phrase is, on their race, their own flesh 
and blood. Did you ever read what Mr. Bancroft 
says about Calvin in his article on Jonathan Ed- 
wards, — and mighty well said it is too, in my judg- 
ment ? Let me remind you of it, whether you have 
read it or not. " Setting himself up over against the 
privileged classes, he, with a loftier pride than theirs, 
revealed the power of a yet higher order of nobility, 
not of a registered ancestry of fifteen generations, but 
one absolutely spotless in its escutcheon, preordained 
in the council chamber of eternity." I think you '11 
find I have got that sentence right, word for word, and 
there 's a great deal more in it than many good folks 
who call themselves after the reformer seem to be 
aware of. The Pope put his foot on the neck of 
kings, but Calvin and his cohort crushed the whole 
human race under their heels in the name of the Lord 
of Hosts. Now, you see, the point that people 
don't understand is the absolute and utter humility 
of science, in opposition to this doctrinal self-suffi- 
ciency. I don't doubt this may sound a little paradox- 
ical at first, but I think you will find it is all right. 
You remember the courtier and the monarch, — Louis 
the Fourteenth, was n't it ? — never mind, give the 
poor fellows that live by setting you right a chance. 
" What o'clock is it ? " says the king. " Just what- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 217 

ever o'clock your Majesty pleases/' says the courtier. 
I venture to say the monarch was a great deal more 
humble than the follower, who pretended that his 
master was superior to such trifling facts as the revo- 
lution of the planet. It was the same thing, you 
remember, with King Canute and the tide on the sear 
shore. The king accepted the scientific fact of the 
tide's rising. The loyal hangers-on, who believed in 
divine right, were too proud of the company they 
found themselves in to make any such humiliating 
admission. But there are people, and plenty of them, 
to-day, who will dispute facts just as clear to those 
who have taken the pains to learn what is known 
about them, as that of the tide's rising. They don't 
like to admit these facts, because they throw doubt 
upon some of their cherished opinions. We are get- 
ting on towards the last part of this nineteenth cen- 
tury. What we have gained is not so much in positive 
knowledge, though that is a good deal, as it is in 
the freedom of discussion of every subject that comes 
within the range of observation and inference. How 
long is it since Mrs. Piozzi wrote, — " Let me hope 
that you will not pursue geology till it leads you into 
doubts destructive of all comfort in this world and all 
happiness in the next " ? 

The Master paused and I remained silent, for I was 
thinking things I could not say. 

— It is well always to have a woman near by when 

10 



218 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

one is talking on this class of subjects. Whether there 
will be three or four women to one man in heaven is a 
question which I must leave to those who talk as if 
they knew all about the future condition of the race to 
answer. But very certainly there is much more of 
hearty faith, much more of spiritual life, among wo- 
men than among men, in this world. They need faith 
to support them more than men do, for they have a 
great deal less to call them out of themselves, and it 
comes easier to them, for their habitual state of de- 
pendence teaches them to trust in others. When they 
become voters, if they ever do, it may be feared that 
the pews will lose what the ward-rooms gain. Relax 
a woman's hold on man, and her knee-joints will soon 
begin to stiffen. Self-assertion brings out many fine 
qualities, but it does not promote devotional habits. 

I remember some such thoughts as this were passing 
through my mind while the Master was talking. I no- 
ticed that the Lady was listening to the conversation 
with a look of more than usual interest. We men 
have the talk mostly to ourselves at this table ; the 
Master, as you have found out, is fond of monologues, 
and I myself — well, I suppose I must own to a cer- 
tain love for the reverberated music of my own accents ; 
at any rate, the Master and I do most of the talking. 
But others help us do the listening. I think I can 
show that they listen to some purpose. I am going 
to surprise my reader with a letter which I received 
very shortly after the conversation took place which 1 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 219 

have just reported. It is of course by a special license, 
such as belongs to the supreme prerogative of an author, 
that I am enabled to present it to him. He need ask 
no questions : it is not his affair how I obtained the 
right to give publicity to a private communication. 
I have become somewhat more intimately acquainted 
with the writer of it than in the earlier period of my 
connection with this establishment, and I think I may 
say have gained her confidence to a very considerable 
degree. 

My dear Sir : The conversations I have had with 
you, limited as they have been, have convinced me 
that I am quite safe in addressing you with freedom 
on a subject which interests me, and others more than 
myself. We at our end of the table have been listen- 
ing, more or less intelligently, to the discussions going 
on between two or three of you gentlemen on matters 
of solemn import to us all. This is nothing very new 
to me. I have been used, from an early period of my 
life, to hear the discussion of grave questions, both in 
politics and religion. I have seen gentlemen at my 
father's table get as warm over a theological point of 
dispute as in talking over their political differences. 
I rather think it has always been very much so, in bad 
as well as in good company ; for you remember how 
Milton's fallen angels amused themselves with disput- 
ing on "providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," 
and it was the same thing in that club Goldsmith 



220 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

writes so pleasantly about. Indeed, why should not 
people very often come, in the course of conversation, 
to the one subject which lies beneath all else about 
which we occupy our thoughts ? And what more 
natural than that one should be inquiring about what 
another has accepted and ceased to have any doubts 
concerning? It seems to me all right that at the 
'proper time, in the proper place, those who are less 
easily convinced than their neighbors should have the 
fullest liberty of calling to account all the opinions 
which others receive without question. Somebody 
must stand sentry at the outposts of belief, and it is a 
sentry's business, I believe, to challenge every one who 
comes near him, friend or foe. 

I want you to understand fully that I am not one of 
those poor nervous creatures who are frightened out 
of their wits when any question is started that implies 
the disturbance of their old beliefs. I manage to see 
some of the periodicals, and now and then dip a little 
way into a new book which deals with these curious 
questions you were talking about, and others like 
them. You know they find their way almost every- 
where. They do not worry me in the least. When I 
was a little girl, they used to say that if you put a 
horsehair into a tub of water it would turn into a 
snake in the course of a few days. That did not seem 
to me so very much stranger than it was that an Qgg 
should turn into a chicken. What can I say to that ? 
Only that it is the Lord's doings, and marvellous in 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 221 

my eyes ; and if our philosophical friend should find 
some little live creatures, or what seem to be live crea- 
tures, in any of his messes, I should say as much, and 
no more. You do not think I would shut up my Bible 
and Prayer-Book because there is one more thing I do 
not understand in a world where I understand so very 
little of all the wonders that surround me ? 

It may be very wrong to pay any attention to those 
speculations about the origin of mankind which seem 
to conflict with the Sacred Record. But perhaps 
there is some way of reconciling them, as there is of 
making the seven days of creation harmonize with 
modern geology. At least, these speculations are 
curious enough in themselves ; and I have seen so 
many good and handsome children come of parents 
who were anything but virtuous and comely, that I 
can believe in almost any amount of improvement 
taking place in a tribe of living beings, if time and 
opportunity favor it. I have read in books of natural 
history that dogs came originally from wolves. When 
I remember my little Flora, who, as I used to think, 
could do everything but talk, it does not seem to me 
that she was much nearer her savage ancestors than 
some of the horrid cannibal wretches are to their 
neighbors the great apes. 

You see that I am tolerably liberal in my habit of 
looking at all these questions. We women drift along 
with the current of the times, listening, in our quiet 



222 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

way, to the discussions going on round us in books 
and in conversation, and shift the phrases in which we 
think and talk with something of the same ease as 
that with which we change our style of dress from 
year to year. I doubt if you of the other sex know 
what an effect this habit of accommodating our tastes to 
changing standards has upon us. N^othing is fixed in 
them, as you know ; the very law of fashion is change. 
I suspect we learn from our dress-makers to shift the 
costume of our minds, and slip on the new fashions 
of thinking all the more easily because we have been 
accustomed to new styles of dressing every season. 

It frightens me to see how much I have written 
without having yet said a word of what I began this 
letter on purpose to say. I have taken so much space 
in "defining my position," to borrow the politicians' 
phrase, that I begin to fear you will be out of patience 
before you come to the part of my letter I care most 
about your reading. 

What I want to say is this. When these matters 
are talked about before persons of different ages and 
various shades of intelligence, I think one ought to be 
very careful that his use of language does not injure 
the sensibilities, perhaps blunt the reverential feelings, 
of those who are listening to him. You of the sterner 
sex say that we women have intuitions, but not logic, 
as our birthright. I shall not commit my sex by con- 
ceding this to be true as a whole, but I will accept 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 223 

the first half of it, and I will go so far as to say that 
we do not always care to follow out a train of thought 
until it ends in a blind cul de sac, as some of what are 
called the logical people are fond of doing. 

Now I want to remind you that religion is not a 
matter of intellectual luxury to those of us who are 
interested in it, but something very different. It is our 
life, and more than our life ; for that is measured by 
pulse-beats, but our religious consciousness partakes 
of the Infinite, towards which it is constantly yearning. 
It is very possible that a hundred or five hundred 
years from now the forms of religious belief may be so 
altered that we should hardly know them. But the 
sense of dependence on Divine influence, and the need 
of communion with the unseen and eternal, will be 
then just what they are now. It is not the geologist's 
hammer, or the astronomer's telescope, or the natural- 
ist's microscope, that is going to take away the need 
of the human soul for that Rock to rest upon which is 
higher than itself, that Star which never sets, that all 
pervading Presence which gives life to all the least 
moving atoms of the immeasurable universe. 

I have no fears for myself, and listen very quietly to 
all your debates. I go from your philosophical discus- 
sions to the reading of Jeremy Taylor's " Rule and 
Exercises of Holy Dying," without feeling that I have 
unfitted myself in the least degree for its solemn 
reflections. And, as I have mentioned his name, I 
cannot help saying that I do not believe that good 



224 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

man himself would have ever shown the bitterness to 
those who seem to be at variance with the received 
doctrines, which one may see in some of the news- 
papers that call themselves " religious." I have kept 
a few old books from my honored father's library, 
and among them is another of his which I always 
thought had more true Christianity in its title than 
there is in a good many whole volumes. I am going 
to take the book down, or up, — for it is not a little 
one, — and write out the title, which, I dare say, you 
remember, and very Kkely you have the book. " Dis- 
course of the Liberty of Prophesying, showing the 
Unreasonableness of prescribing to other Men's Faith, 
and the Iniquity of persecuting Different Opinions." 

Now, my dear sir, I am sure you believe that I want 
to be liberal and reasonable, and not to act like those 
weak alarmists who, whenever the silly sheep begin 
to skip as if something was after them, and huddle 
together in their fright, are sure there must be a 
bear or a lion coming to eat them up. But for all 
that, I want to beg you to handle some of these points, 
which are so involved in the creed of a good many 
well-intentioned persons that you cannot separate 
them from it without picking their whole belief to 
pieces, with more thought for them than you might 
think at first they were entitled to. I have no doubt 
you gentlemen are as wise as serpents, and I want you 
to be as harmless as doves. 

The Young Girl who sits by me has, I know, strong 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 225 

religious instincts. Instead of setting her out to ask 
all sorts of questions, I would rather, if I had my way, 
encourage her to form a habit of attending to religious 
duties, and make the most of the simple faith in which 
she was bred. I think there are a good many ques- 
tions young persons may safely postpone to a more 
convenient season ; and as this young creature is over- 
worked, I hate to have her excited by the fever of 
doubt which it cannot be denied is largely prevailing 
in our time. 

I know you must have looked on our other young 
friend, who has devoted himself to the sublimest of 
the sciences, with as much interest as I do. When I 
was a little girl I used to write out a line of Young's 
as a copy in my writing-book, 



but I do not now feel quite so sure that the contem- 
plation of all the multitude of remote worlds does not 
tend to weaken the idea of a personal Deity. It is not 
so much that nebular theory which worries me, when 
I think about this subject, as a kind of bewilderment 
when I try to conceive of a consciousness filling aU 
those frightful blanks of space they talk about. I 
sometimes doubt whether that young man worships 
anything but the stars. They tell me that many young 
students of science like him never see the inside of a 
church. I cannot help wishing they did. It human- 
izes people, quite apart from any higher influence it 

10* o 



226 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

exerts upon them. One reason, perhaps, why they do 
not care to go to places of worship is that they are 
liable to hear the questions they know something about 
handled in sermons by those who know very much less 
about them. And so they lose a great deal. Almost 
every human being, however vague his notions of 
the Power addressed, is capable of being lifted and 
solemnized by the exercise of public prayer. When I 
was a young girl we travelled in Europe, and I visited 
Femey with my parents ; and I remember we all 
stopped before a chapel, and I read upon its front, — 
I knew Latin enough to understand it, I am pleased 
to say, — Deo erexit Voltaire. I never forgot it ; and 
knowing what a sad scoffer he was at most sacred 
things, I could not but be impressed with the fact that 
even he was not satisfied with himself, until he had 
shown his devotion in a public and lasting form. 

We all want religion sooner or later. I am afraid 
there are some who have no natural turn for it, as 
there are persons without an ear for music, to which, 
if I remember right, I heard one of you comparing 
what you called religious genius. But sorrow and 
misery bring even these to know what it means, in a 
great many instances. May I not say to you, my 
friend, that I am one who has learned the secret of 
the inner life by the discipline of trials in the life of 
outward circumstance ? I can remember the time 
when I thought more about the shade of color in a 
ribbon, whether it matched my complexion or not, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 227 

than I did about my spiritual interests in this world or 
the next. It was needful that I should learn the 
meaning of that text, " Whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth." 

Since I have been taught in the school of trial I 
have felt, as I never could before, how precious an 
inheritance is the smallest patrimony of faith. When 
everything seemed gone from me, I found I had still 
one possession. The bruised reed that I had never 
leaned on became my staff. The smoking flax which 
had been a worry to my eyes burst into flame, and 
I lighted the taper at it which has since guided all 
my footsteps. And I am but one of the thousands 
who have had the same experience. They have 
been through the depths of aflliction, and know the 
needs of the human soul. It will find its God in 
the unseen, — Father, Saviour, Divine Spirit, Virgin 
Mother, — it must and will breathe its longings and 
its griefs into the heart of a Being capable of under- 
standing all its necessities and sympathizing with all 
its woes. 

I am jealous, yes, I own I am jealous of any word, 
spoken or written, that would tend to impair that 
birthright of reverence which becomes for so many in 
after years the basis of a deeper religious sentiment. 
And yet, as I have said, I cannot and will not shut my 
eyes to the problems which may seriously afffect our 
modes of conceiving the eternal truths on which, and 
by which, our souls must live. What a fearful time is 



228 ,THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

this into which we poor sensitive and timid creatures 
are born ! I suppose the life of every century has 
more or less special resemblance to that of some par- 
ticular Apostle. I cannot help thinking this century 
has Thomas for its model. How do you suppose the 
other Apostles felt when that experimental philosopher 
explored the wounds of the Being who to them was 
divine with his inquisitive forefinger ? In our time 
that finger has multiplied itself into ten thousand 
thousand implements of research, challenging all mys- 
teries, weighing the world as in a balance, and sifting 
through its prisms and spectroscopes the light that 
comes fi:om the throne of the Eternal. 

Pity us, dear Lord, pity us ! The peace in believing 
which belonged to other ages is not for us. Again 
Thy wounds are opened that we may know whether it 
is the blood of one like ourselves which flows from 
them, or whether it is a Divinity that is bleeding for 
His creatures. Wilt Thou not take the doubt of Thy 
children whom the time commands to try all things in 
the place of the unquestioning faith of earlier and sim- 
pler-hearted generations ? We too have need of Thee. 
Thy martyrs in other ages were cast into the flames, 
but no fire could touch their immortal and indestructi- 
ble faith. We sit in safety and in peace, so far as these 
poor bodies are concerned ; but our cherished beliefs, 
the hopes, the trust that stayed the hearts of those we 
loved who have gone before us, are cast into the fiery 
furnace of an age which is fast turning to dross the 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 229 

certainties and the sanctities once prized as our most 
precious inheritance. 

You will understand me, my dear sir, and all my 
solicitudes and apprehensions. Had I never been 
assailed by the questions that meet all thinking per- 
sons in our time, I might not have thought so anx- 
iously about the risk of perplexing others. I know as 
well as you must that there are many articles of belief 
clinging to the skirts of our time which are the be- 
quests of the ages of ignorance that God winked at. 
But for all that I would train a child in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord, according to the simplest 
and best creed I could disentangle from those barba- 
risms, and I would in every way try to keep up in 
young persons that standard of reverence for all sacred 
subjects which may, without any violent transition, 
grow and ripen into the devotion of later years. 
Believe me, 

Very sincerely yours, 



I have thought a good deal about this letter and the 
writer of it lately. She seemed at first removed to a 
distance from all of us, but here I find myself in some- 
what near relations with her. What has surprised me 
more than that, however, is to find that she is becom- 
ing so much acquainted with the Register of Deeds. 
Of all persons in the world, I should least have 
thought of him as like to be interested in her, and 



230 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

still less, if possible, of her fancying him. I can only 
say they have been in pretty close conversation several 
times of late, and, if I dared to think it of so very 
calm and dignified a personage, I should say that her 
color was a little heightened after one or more of these 
interviews. No ! that would be too absurd ! But I 
begin to think nothing is absurd in the matter of the 
relations of the two sexes ; and if this high-bred 
woman fancies the attentions of a piece of human 
machinery like this elderly individual, it is none of 
my business. 

I have been at work on some more of the Young 
Astronomer's lines. I find less occasion for meddling 
with them as he grows more used to versification. I 
think I could analyze the processes going on in his 
mind, and the conflict of instincts which he cannot in 
the nature of things understand. But it is as well to 
give the reader a chance to find out for himself what 
is going on in the young man's heart and intellect. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAE-DRIFTS. 

III. 

The snows that glittered on the disk of Mars 

Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb 

Rolls in the crimson summer of its year ; 

But what to me the summer or the snow 

Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 231 

If life indeed be theirs ; I heed not these. 

My heart is simply human ; all my care 

For them whose dust is fashioned like mine own ; 

These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain, 

And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe ; 

There may be others worthier of my love. 

But such I know not save through these I know. 

There are two veils of language, hid beneath 
Whose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves; 
And not that other self which nods and smiles 
And babbles in our name ; the one is Prayer, 
Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue 
That tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven ; 
The other, Yerse, that throws its spangled web 
Around our naked speech and makes it bold. 
I, whose best prayer is silence ; sitting dumb 
In the great temple where I nightly serve 
Him who is throned in light, have dared to claim 
The poet's franchise, though I may not hope 
To wear his garland ; hear me while I tell 
My story in such form as poets use, 
But breathed in fitful whispers, as the wind 
Sighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again. 

Thou Vision, floating in the breathless air 

Between me and the fairest of the stars, 

I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee. 

Look not for marvels of the scholar's pen 

In my rude measure ; I can only show 

A slender-margined, unillumined page, 

And trust its meaning to the flattering eye 

That reads it in the gracious light of love. 

Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shape 



232 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

And nestle at my side, my voice should lend 
Whate'er my verse may lack of tender rhythm 
To make thee listen. 

I have stood entranced 
When, with her fingers wandering o'er the keys, 
The white enchantress with the golden hair 
Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme ; 
Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom •, 
Lo ! its dead summer kindled as she sang ! 
The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, 
Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, 
And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, 
Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose 
The wind has shaken till it fills the air 
With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm 
A song can borrow when the bosom throbs 
That lends it breath. 

So from the poet's lips 
His verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like him 
Feels every cadence of its wave-like flow ; 
He lives the passion over, while he reads. 
That shook him as he sang his lofty strain, 
And pours his life through each resounding line, 
As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed, 
Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves. 

Let me retrace the record of the years 
That made me what I am. A man most wise, 
But overworn with toil and bent with age, 
Sought me to be his scholar, — me, run wild 
From books and teachers, — kindled in my soul 
The love of knowledge ; led me to his tower. 
Showed me the wonders of the midnight realm 
His hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 233 

Taught me tlie mighty secrets of the spheres, 

Trained me to find the glimmering specks of light 

Beyond the unaided sense, and on my chart 

To string them one by one, in order due, 

As on a rosary a saint his beads. 

I was his only scholar ; I became 

The echo to his thought ; whate'er he knew 

Was mine for asking ; so fi'om year to year 

"We wrought together, till there came a time 

When I, the learner, was the master half 

Of the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower. 

Minds roll in paths like planets ; they revolve 
This in a larger, that a narrower ring. 
But round they come at last to that same phase, 
That self-same light and shade they showed before. 
I learned his annual and his monthly tale, 
His weekly axiom and his daily phrase, 
I felt them coming in the laden air, 
And watched them laboring up to vocal breath, 
Even as the first-bom at his father's board 
Knows ere he speaks the too familiar jest 
Is on its way, by some mysterious sign 
Forewarned, the click before the striking bell. 

He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves. 
Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care ; 
He lived for me in what he once had been, 
But I for him, a shadow, a defence. 
The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff) 
Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. 
I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, 
Love was my spur and longing after fame. 
But his the goading thorn of sleepless age 



234 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

That sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades, 
That clutches what it may with eager grasp, 
And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands. 

All this he dreamed not. He would sit him down 
Thinking to work his problems as of old, 
And find the star he thought so plain a blur, 
The columned figures labyrinthine wilds 
Without my comment, blind and senseless scrawls 
That vexed him with their riddles ; he would strive 
And struggle for a while, and then his eye 
Would lose its light, and over all his mind 
The cold gray mist would settle ; and erelong 
The darkness fell, and I was left alone. 

Alone ! no climber of an Alpine cliff. 
No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, 
Feels the dread stillness round him as it chills 
The heart of him who leaves the slumbering earth 
To watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky. 

Alone ! And as the shepherd leaves his flock 
To feed upon the hillside, he meanwhile 
Finds converse in the warblings of the pipe 
Himself has fashioned for his vacant hour, 
So have I grown companion to myself, 
And to the wandering spirits of the air 
That smile and whisper round us in our dreams. 
Thus have I learned to search if I may know 
The whence and why of all beneath the stars 
And all beyond them, and to weigh my life 
As in a balance, — poising good and ill 
Against each other, — asking of the Power 
That flung me forth among the whirling worlds, 
If I am heir to any inborn right, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 235 

Or only as an atom of the dust 

That every wind may blow where'er it wilL 

I am not humble ; I was shown my place, 
Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand ; 
Took what she gave, not chose ; I know no shame, 
No fear for being simply what I am. 
I am not proud, I hold my every breath 
At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe 
Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not where ; 
Each several heart-beat, counted like the coin 
A miser reckons, is a special gift 
As from an unseen hand ; if that withhold 
Its bounty for a moment, I am left 
A clod upon the earth to which I fall. 

Something I find in me that well might claim 

The love of beings in a sphere above 

This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong ; 

Something that shows me of the self-same clay 

That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. 

Had I been asked, before I left my bed 

Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear, 

I would have said, More angel and less worm ; 

But for their sake who are even such as I, 

Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose 

To hate that meaner portion of myself 

Which makes me brother to the least of men. 

I dare not be a coward with my lips 
Who dare to question all things in my soul ; 
Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, 
Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves j 
Let the meek glow-worm glisten in the dew; 



236 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I ask to lift my taper to the sky- 
As they who hold their lamps above their heads, 
Trusting the larger currents up aloft, 
Rather than crossing eddies round their breast. 
Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze 

My life shall be a challenge, not a truce ! 

This is my homage to the mightier powers. 

To ask my boldest question, undismayed 

By muttered threats that some hysteric sense 

Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne 

Where wisdom reigns supreme ; and if I err, 

They all must err who have to feel their way 

As bats that fly at noon ; for what are we 

But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, 

Who needs must stumble, and with stammering st^ps 

Spell out their paths in syllables of pain ? 

Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares 
Look up to Thee, the Father, — dares to ask 
More than Thy wisdom answers. From Thy hand 
The worlds were cast ; yet every leaflet claims 
From that same hand its little shining sphere 
Of star-lit dew ; thine image, the great sun. 
Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame. 
Glares in mid-heaven ; but to his noontide blaze 
The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, 
And from his splendor steals its fairest hue. 
Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire. 

I may just as well stop here as anywhere, for there 
is more of the manuscript to come, and I can only 
give it in instalments. 

The Young Astronomer had told me I might read 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 237 

any portions of his manuscript I saw fit to certain 
friends. I tried this last extract on the Old Master. 

It 's the same story we all have to tell, — said he, 
when I had done reading. — We are all asking ques- 
tions nowadays. I should like to hear him read some 
of his verses himself, and I think some of the other 
boarders would like to. I wonder if he would n't do 
it, if we asked him ! Poets read their own compositions 
in a singsong sort of way ; but they do seem to love 
'em so, that I always enjoy it. It makes me laugh a 
little inwardly to see how they dandle their poetical 
babies, but I don't let them know it. We must get 
up a select party of the boarders to hear him read. 
We 'U send him a regular invitation. I will put my 
name at the head of it, and you shall write it. 

— That was neatly done. How I hate writing such 
things ! But I suppose I must do it. 



VIII. 

The Master and I had been thinking for some time 
of trying to get the Young Astronomer round to our 
side of the table. There are many subjects on which 
both of us like to talk with him, and it would be con- 
venient to have him nearer to us. How to manage it 
was not quite so clear as it might have been. The 
Scarabee wanted to sit with his back to the light, as it 



238 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

was in his present position. He used his eyes so much 
in studying minute objects, that he wished to spare 
them all fatigue, and did not like facing a window. 
Neither of us cared to ask the Man of Letters, so 
called, to change his place, and of course we could not 
think of making such a request of the Young Girl or 
the Lady. So we were at a stand with reference to 
this project of ours. 

But while we were proposing. Fate or Providence 
disposed everything for us. The Man of Letters, so 
called, was missing one morning, having folded his 
tent — that is, packed his carpet-bag — with the si- 
lence of the Arabs, and encamped — that is, taken 
lodgings — in some locality which he had forgotten to 
indicate. 

The Landlady bore this sudden bereavement re- 
markably well. Her remarks and reflections, though 
borrowing the aid of homely imagery and doing occa- 
sional violence to the nicer usages of speech, were not 
without philosophical discrimination. 

— I like a gentleman that is a gentleman. But 
there 's a difference in what folks call gentlemen as 
there is in what you put on table. There is cabbages 
and there is cauliflowers. There is clams and there is 
oysters. There is mackerel and there is salmon. And 
there is some that knows the difference and some that 
doos n't. I had a little account with that boarder that 
he forgot to settle before he went ofi^, so all of a 
suddin. I sha' n't say anything about it. I 've seen 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 239 

the time when I should have felt bad about losing 
what he owed me, but it was no great matter ; and if 
he '11 only stay away now he 's gone, I can stand losing 
it, and not cry my eyes out nor lay awake all night 
neither. I never had ought to have took him. Where 
he come from and where he 's gone to is unbeknown 
to me. If he 'd only smoked good tobacco, I would 
n't have said a word ; but it was such dreadful stuff, it 
'11 take a week to get his chamber sweet enough to show 
them that asks for rooms. It doos smell like all possest. 

— Left any goods ? — asked the Salesman. 

— Or dockermunts ? — added the Member of the 
Haouse. 

The Landlady answered with a faded smile, which 
implied that there was no hope in that direction. Dr. 
Benjamin, with a sudden recurrence of youthful feel- 
ing, made a fan with the fingers of his right hand, the 
second phalanx of the thumb resting on the tip of the 
nose, and the remaining digits diverging from each 
other, in the plane of the median line of the face, — I 
suppose this is the way he would have described the 
gesture, which is almost a specialty of the Parisian 
gamin. That Boy immediately copied it, and added 
greatly to its effect by extending the fingers of the 
other hand in a line with those of the first, and vigor- 
ously agitating those of the two hands, — a gesture 
which acts like a puncture on the distended self-esteem 
of one to whom it is addressed, and cheapens the 
memory of the absent to a very low figure. 



240 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I wish the reader to observe that I treasure up with 
interest all the words uttered by the Salesman. It 
must have been noticed that he very rarely speaks. 
Perhaps he has an inner life, with its own deep 
emotional, and lofty contemplative elements, but as 
we see him, he is the boarder reduced to the simplest 
expression of that term. Yet, like most human crea- 
tures, he has generic and specific characters not 
unworthy of being studied. I notice particularly a 
certain electrical briskness of movement, such as one 
may see in a squirrel, which clearly belongs to his 
calling. The dry-goodsman's life behind his counter is 
a succession of sudden, snappy perceptions and brief 
series of co-ordinated spasms, as thus : — 

" Purple calico, three quarters wide, six yards." 

Up goes the arm ; bang ! tumbles out the flat roll 
and turns half a dozen somersets, as if for the fun of 
the thing ; the six yards of calico hurry over the meas- 
uring-nails, hunching their backs up, like six canker- 
worms ; out jump the scissors ; snip, clip, rip ; the 
stuff is wisped up, brown-papered, tied, labelled, de- 
livered, and the man is himself again, like a child just 
come out of a convulsion-fit. Think of a man's having 
some hundreds of these semi-epileptic seizures every 
day, and you need not wonder that he does not say 
much ; these fits take the talk all out of him. 

But because he, or any other man, does not say 
much, it does not follow that he may not have, as I 
have said, an exalted and intense inner life. I have 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 241 

fenown a number of cases where a man who seemed 
thoroughly commonplace and unemotional has all at 
once surprised everybody by telling the story of his 
hidden life far more pointedly and dramatically than 
any playwright or novelist or poet could have told it 
for him. I will not insult your intelligence, Beloved, 
by saying how he has told it. 

— We had been talking over the subjects touched 
upon in the Lady's letter. 

— I suppose one man in a dozen — said the Master 
— ought to be born a sceptic. That was the propor- 
tion among the Apostles, at any rate. 

— So there was one Judas among them, — I re- 
marked. 

— Well, — said the Master, — they 've been white- 
washing Judas of late. But never mind him. I did 
not say there was not one rogue on the average among 
a dozen men. I don't see how that would interfere 
with my proposition. If I say that among a dozen 
men you ought to find one that weighs over a hundred 
and fifty pounds, and you tell me that there were 
twelve men in your club, and one of 'em had red hair, 
I don't see that you have materially damaged my 
statement. 

— I thought it best to let the Old Master have his 
easy victory, which was more apparent than real, very 
evidently, and he went on. 

— When the Lord sends out a batch of human 

11 p 



242 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

beings, say a hundred — Did you ever read my book, 
the new edition of it I mean ? 

It is rather awkward to answer such a question in 
the negative, but I said, with the best grace I could, 
" 1^0, not the last edition" 

— Well, I must give you a copy of it. My book 
and I are pretty much the same thing. Sometimes I 
steal from my book in my talk without mentioning it, 
and then I say to myself, " 0, that won't do ; everybody 
has read my book and knows it by heart." And then 
the other / says, — you know there are two of us, 
right and left, like a pair of shoes, — the other / says, 
" You 're a — something or other — fool. They have 
n't read your confounded old book ; besides, if they 
have, they have forgotten all about it." Another time, 
I say, thinking I will be very honest, " I have said 
something about that in my book " ; and then the 
other / says, " What a Balaam's quadruped you are 
to tell 'em it 's in your book ; they don't care whether it 
is or not, if it 's anything worth saying ; and if it is n't 
worth saying, what are you braying for ? " That is a 
rather sensible fellow, that other chap we talk with, 
but an impudent whelp. I never got such abuse from 
any blackguard in my life as I have from that No. 2 
of me, the one that answers the other's questions and 
makes the comments, and does what in demotic phrase 
is called the " sarsing." 

— I laughed at that. I have just such a fellow 
always with me, as wise as Solomon, if I would only 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 243 

heed him ; but as insolent as Shimei, cursing, and 
throwing stones and dirt, and behaving as if he had 
the traditions of the " ape-like human being " born 
with him rather than civilized instincts. One does 
not have to be a king to know what it is to keep 
a king's jester. 

— I mentioned my book, — the Master said, — be- 
cause I have something in it on the subject we were 
talking about. I should like to read you a passage 
here and there out of it, where I have expressed my- 
self a little more freely on some of those matters we 
handle in conversation. If you don't quarrel with it, 
I must give you a copy of the book. It 's a rather 
serious thing to get a copy of a book from the writer 
of it. It has made my adjectives sweat pretty hard, I 
know, to put together an answer returning thanks and 
not lying beyond the twilight of veracity, if one may 
use a figure. Let me try a little of my book on you, 
in divided doses, as my friends the doctors say. 

— Fiat experimentum m corpore vili, — I said, 
laughing at my own expense. I don't doubt the medi- 
cament is quite as good as the patient deserves, and 
probably a great deal better, — I added, reinforcing 
my feeble compliment. 

[When you pay a compliment to an author, don't 
qualify it in the next sentence so as to take all the 
goodness out of it. Now I am thinking of it, I will 
give you one or two pieces of advice. Be careful to 
assure yourself that the person you are talking with 



244 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Vvrote the article or book you praise. It is not very 
pleasant to be told, " Well, there, now ! I always 
liked your writings, but you never did anything half so 
good as this last piece," and then to have to tell the 
blunderer that this last piece is n't yours, but t' other 
man's. Take care that the phrase or sentence you 
commend is not one that is in quotation-marks. " The 
best thing in your piece, I think, is a line I do not re- 
member meeting before ; it struck me as very true and 
well expressed : — 

* An honest man 's the noblest work of God.' " 

'* But, my dear lady, that line is one which is to be 
found in a writer of the last century, and not original 
with me." One ought not to have undeceived her, 
perhaps, but one is naturally honest, and cannot bear 
to be credited with what is not his own. The lady 
blushes, of course, and says she has not read much 
ancient literature, or some such thing. The pearl 
upon the Ethiop's arm is very pretty in verse, but one 
does not care to furnish the dark background for other 
persons' jewelry.] 

I adjourned from the table in company with the Old 
Master to his apartments. He was evidently in easy 
circumstances, for he had the best accommodations 
the house afforded. We passed through a reception- 
room to his library, where everything showed that he 
had ample means for indulging the modest tastes of a 
scholar. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 245 

— The first thing, naturally, when one enters a 
scholar's study or library, is to look at his books. One 
gets a notion very speedily of his tastes and the range 
of his pursuits by a glance round his book-shelves. 

Of course, you know there are many fine houses 
where the library is a part of the upholstery, so to 
speak. Books in handsome binding kept locked under 
plate-glass in showy dwarf bookcases are as important 
to stylish establishments as servants in livery, who sit 
with folded arms, are to stylish equipages. I suppose 
those wonderful statues with the folded arms do some- 
times change their attitude, and I suppose those books 
with the gilded backs do sometimes get opened, but 
it is nobody's business whether they do or not, and it 
is not best to ask too many questions. 

This sort of thing is common enough, but there is 
another case that may prove deceptive if you under- 
take to judge from appearances. Once in a while you 
will come on a house where you will find a family of 
readers and almost no library. Some of the most in- 
defatigable devourers of literature have very few books. 
They belong to book clubs, they haunt the public 
libraries, they borrow of friends, and somehow or 
other get hold of everything they want, scoop out all 
it holds for them, and have done with it. When 1 
want a book, it is as a tiger wants a sheep. I must 
have it with one spring, and, if I miss it, go away de- 
feated and hungry. And my experience with public 
libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire 



246 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when 
that is out. 

— I was pretty well prepared to understand the 
Master's library and his account of it. We seated our- 
selves in two very comfortable chairs, and I began the 
conversation. 

— I see you have a large and rather miscellaneous 
collection of books. Did you get them together by 
accident or according to some preconceived plan ? 

— Both, sir, both, — the Master answered. — When 
Providence throws a good book in my way, I bow to 
its decree and purchase it as an act of piety, if it 
is reasonably or unreasonably cheap. I adopt a certain 
number of books every year, out of a love for the 
foundlings and stray children of other people's brains 
that nobody seems to care for. Look here. 

He took down a Greek Lexicon finely bound in 
ealf, and spread it open. 

Do you see that Hedericus ? I had Greek diction- 
aries enough and to spare, but I saw that noble quarto 
lying in the midst of an ignoble crowd of cheap books, 
and marked with a price which I felt to be an insult 
to scholarship, to the memory of Homer, sir, and the 
awful shade of ^schylus. I paid the mean price 
asked for it, and I wanted to double it, but I suppose 
it would have been a foolish sacrifice of coin to senti- 
ment. I love that book for its looks and behavior. 
None of your " half-calf" economies in that volume, 
dr ! And see how it lies open anywhere ! There 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 247 

is n't a book in my library that has such a generous 
way of laying its treasures before you. From Alpha 
to Omega, calm, assured rest at any page that your 
choice or accident may light on. No lifting of a rebel- 
lious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know 
his place and can never be taught manners, but tran- 
quil, well-bred repose. A book may be a perfect gen- 
tleman in its aspect and demeanor, and this book 
would be good company for personages like Roger 
Ascham and his pupils the Lady Elizabeth and the 
Lady Jane Grey. 

The Master was evidently riding a hobby, and what 
I wanted to know was the plan on which he had 
formed his library. So I brought him back to the 
point by asking him the question in so many words. 

Yes, — he said, — I have a kind of notion of the 
way in which a library ought to be put together — no, 
I don't mean that, I mean ought to grow. I don't 
pretend to say that mine is a model, but it serves my 
turn well enough, and it represents me pretty accu- 
rately. A scholar must shape his own shell, secrete it, 
one might almost say, for secretion is only separation, 
you know, of certain elements derived from the mate- 
rials of the world about us. And a scholar's study, 
with the books lining its walls, is his shell. It is n't 
a mollusk's shell, either ; it 's a caddice-worm's shell. 
You know about the caddice-worm ? 

— More or less ; less rather than more, — was my 
humble reply. 



248 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Well, sir, the caddice-worm is the larva of a fly, and 
he makes a case for himself out of all sorts of bits of 
everything that happen to suit his particular fancy, 
dead or alive, sticks and stones and small shells with 
their owners in 'em, living as comfortable as ever. 
Every one of these caddice-worms has his special fancy 
as to what he will pick up and glue together, with a 
kind of natural cement he provides himself, to make 
his case out of. In it he lives, sticking his head and 
shoulders out once in a while, that is all. Don't you 
see that a student in his library is a caddice-worm in 
his case ? I 've told you that I take an interest in 
pretty much everything, and don't mean to fence out 
any human interests from the private grounds of my 
intelligence. Then, again, there is a subject, perhaps 
I may say there is more than one, that I want to ex- 
haust, to know to the very bottom. And besides, of 
course I must have my literary harem, vaj pare aux 
cerfs, where my favorites await my moments of leisure 
and pleasure, — my scarce and precious editions, my 
luxurious typographical masterpieces ; my Delilahs, 
that take my head in their lap : the pleasant story- 
tellers and the like ; the books I love because they 
are fair to look upon, prized by collectors, endeared by 
old associations, secret treasures that nobody else 
knows anything about ; books, in short, that I like 
for insufficient reasons it may be, but peremptorily, 
and mean to like and to love and to cherish till 
death us do part. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 249 

Don't you see I have given you a key to the vray 
my library is made up, so that you can apriorize the 
plan according to which I have filled my bookcases ? 
I will tell you how it is carried out. 

In the first place, you see, I have four extensive 
cyclopsedias. Out of these I can get information 
enough to serve my immediate purpose on almost any 
subject. These, of course, are supplemented by geo- 
graphical, biographical, bibliographical, and other 
dictionaries, including of course lexicons to all the 
languages I ever meddle with. Next to these come 
the works relating to my one or two specialties, and 
these collections I make as perfect as I can. Every 
library should try to be complete on something, if it 
were only on the history of pin-heads. I don't mean 
that I buy all the trashy compilations on my special 
subjects, but I try to have all the works of any real 
importance relating to them, old as well as new. In 
the following compartment you will find the great 
authors in all the languages I have mastered, from 
Homer and Hesiod downward to the last great English 
name. This division, you see, you can make almost 
as extensive or as limited as you choose. You can 
crowd the great representative vn^iters into a small 
compass ; or you can make a library consisting only 
of the different editions of Horace, if you have space 
and money enough. Then comes the Harem, the 
shelf or the bookcase of Delilahs, that you have paid 

mcked prices for, that you love without pretending to 
11* 



250 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TACLE. 

be reasonable about it, and would bag in case of 
fire before all the rest, just as Mr. Townley took the 
Cljtie to his carriage when the anti-Catholic mob 
threatened his house in 1780. As for the foundlings 
like my Hedericus, they go among their peers ; it is a 
pleasure to take them fi-om the dusty stall where they 
were elbowed by plebeian school-books and battered 
odd volumes, and give them Alduses and Elzevirs for 
companions. 

l!^othing remains but the Infirmary. The most pain- 
ful subjects are the unfortunates that have lost a cover. 
Bound a hundred years ago, perhaps, and one of the 
rich old browned covers gone — what a pity ! Do 
you know what to do about it ? I 11 tell you, — no, 
I '11 show you. Look at this volume. M, T. Ciceronis 
Opera, — a dozen of 'em, — one of 'em minus half his 
cover, a poor one-legged cripple, six months ago, — 
now see him. 

— He looked very respectably indeed, both covers 
dark, ancient, very decently matched ; one would 
hardly notice the fact that they were not twins. 

— I '11 tell you what I did. You poor devil, said I, 
you are a disgrace to your family. We must send you 
to a surgeon and have some kind of a Taliacotian oper- 
ation performed on you. (You remember the oper- 
ation as described in Hudibras, of course.) The first 
thing was to find a subject of similar age and aspect 
ready to part with one of his members. So I went to 
Quidlibet's, — you know Quidlibet and that hiero- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 251 

glyphic sign of his with the omniscient-looking eye 
as its most prominent feature, — and laid my case 
before him. I want you, said I, to look up an old 
book of mighty little value, — one of your ten-cent 
vagabonds would be the sort of thing, — but an old 
beggar, with a cover like this, and lay it by for me. 

And Quidlibet, who is a pleasant body to deal with, 
— only he has insulted one or two gentlemanly books 
by selKng them to me at very low-bred and shame- 
fully insufficient prices, — Quidlibet, I say, laid by 
three old books for me to help myself from, and 
did n't take the trouble even to make me pay the 
thirty cents for 'em. Well, said I to myself, let us 
look at our three books that have undergone the last 
insult short of the trunk-maker's or the paper-mills, 
and see what they are. There may be something 
worth looking at in one or the other of 'em. 

Now do you know it was with a kind of a tremor 
that I untied the package and looked at these three 
unfortunates, too humble for the companionable dime 
to recognize as its equal in value. The same sort of 
feeling you know if you ever tried the Bible-and-key, or 
the Sortes Virgiliance. I think you will like to know 
what the three books were which had been bestowed 
upon me gratis, that I might tear away one of the 
covers of the one that best matched my Cicero, and 
give it to the binder to cobble my crippled volume 
with. 

The Master took the three books from a cupboard 
and continued. 



252 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

No. I. An odd volume of The Adventurer. It has 
many interesting things enough, but is made precious 
by containing Simon Browne's famous Dedication to 
the Queen of his Answer to Tindal's " Christianity as 
old as the Creation." Simon Browne was the Man 
without a Soul, An excellent person, a most worthy 
dissenting minister, but lying under a strange delu- 
sion. 

Here is a paragraph from his Dedication : — 

^^He was once a man; and of some little name; 
but of no worth, as his present unparalleled case 
makes but too manifest ; for by the immediate hand 
of an avenging GOD, his very thinking substance has, 
for more than seven years, been continually wasting 
away, till it is wholly perished out of him, if it be not 
utterly come to nothing. None, no, not the least re- 
membrance of its very ruins, remains, not the shadow 
of an idea is left, nor any sense that so much as one 
single one, perfect or imperfect, whole or diminished, 
ever did appear to a mind within him, or was per- 
ceived by it." 

Think of this as the Dedication of a book " univer- 
sally allowed to be the best which that controversy 
produced," and what a flood of light it pours on the 
insanities of those self-analyzing diarists whose morbid 
reveries have been so often mistaken for piety ! No. 
I. had something for me, then, besides the cover, which 
was all it claimed to have worth offering. 

No. II. was " A View of Society and Manners in 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 253 

Italy." Vol. III. By John Moore, M. D. {Zeliico 
Moore.) You know his pleasant book. In this par- 
ticular volume what interested me most, perhaps, was 
the very spirited and intelligent account of the mira- 
cle of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Janua.- 
rius, but it gave me an hour's mighty agreeable read- 
ing. So much for Number Two. 

No. III. was "An Essay on the Great EFFECTS 
of Even Languid and Unheeded Local Motion." 
By the Hon. Robert Boyle. Published in 1685, and, 
as appears from other sources, "received with great 
and general applause." I confess I was a little 
startled to find how near this earlier philosopher had 
come to the modern doctrines, such as are illustrated 
in Tyndall's " Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." 
He speaks of " Us, who endeavor to resolve the Phe- 
nomena of Nature into Matter and Local motion." 
That sounds like the nineteenth century, but what 
shall we say to this? "As when a bar of iron oi 
silver, having been well hammered, is newly taken oiF 
of the anvil ; though the eye can discern no motion ii? 
it, yet the touch will readily perceive it to be very hot, 
and if you spit upon it, the brisk agitation of the in-* 
sensible parts will become visible in that which they 
will produce in the liquor." He takes a bar of tin, 
and tries whether by bending it to and fro two or three 
times he cannot " procure a considerable internal com- 
motion among the parts " ; and having by this means 
broken or cracked it in the middle, finds, as he eX' 



254 THE POET AT THE BR£A«FAST-TABLE. 

pectedj that the middle parts had considerably heated 
each other. There are many other curious and inter- 
esting observations in the vohime which I should like 
to tell you of, but these will serve my purpose. 

— Which book furnished you the old cover you 
wanted? — said I. 

— Did he kill the owl ? — said the Master, laughing. 
[I suppose you, the reader, know the owl story.] — It 
was Number Two that lent me one of his covers. 
Poor wretch ! He was one of three, and had lost his 
two brothers. From him that hath not shall be taken 
even that which he hath. The Scripture had to be 
fulfilled in his case. But I couldn't help saying to 
myself. What do you keep writing books for, when the 
stalls are covered all over with 'em, good books, too, 
that nobody will give ten cents apiece for, lying there 
like so many dead beasts of burden, of no account ex- 
cept to strip off their hides ? What is the use, I say ? 
I have made a book or two in my time, and I am mak- 
ing another that perhaps will see the light one of these 
days. But if I had my life to live over again, I think 
I should go in for silence, and get as near to Nirvana 
as 1 could. This language is such a paltry tool ! The 
handle of it cuts and the blade does n't. You muddle 
yourself by not knowing what you mean by a word, 
and send out your unanswered riddles and rebuses to 
clear up other people's difficulties. It always seems 
to me that talk is a ripple and thought is a ground 
swell. A string of words, that mean pretty much 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 255 

anything, helps you in a certain sense to get hold of a 
thought, just as a string of syllables that mean noth- 
ing helps you to a word ; but it 's a poor business, it 's 
a poor business, and the more you study definition the 
more you find out how poor it is. Do you know I 
sometimes think our little entomological neighbor is 
doing a sounder business than we people that make 
books about ourselves and our slippery abstractions? 
A man can see the spots on a bug and count 'em, and 
tell what their color is, and put another bug alongside 
of him and see whether the two are alike or different. 
And when he uses a word he knows just what he 
means. There is no mistake as to the meaning and 
identity of pulex irritans, confound him ! 

— What if we should look in, some day, on the 
Scarabeeist, as he calls himself ? — said I. — The fact is 
the Master had got a going at such a rate that I was 
willing to give a little turn to the conversation. 

— very well, — said the Master, — I had some 
more things to say, but I don't doubt they '11 keep. 
And besides, I take an interest in entomology, and 
have my own opinion on the meloe question. 

— You don't mean to say you have studied insects 
as well as solar systems and the order of things gen- 
erally ? 

— He looked pleased. All philosophers look 
pleased when people say to them virtually, ^^ Ye are 
gods." The Master says he is vain constitutionally, 
and thanks God that he is. I don't think he has 



256 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

enough vanity to make a fool of himself with it, but 
the simple truth is he cannot help knowing that he 
has a wide and lively intelligence, and it pleases him 
to know it, and to be reminded of it, especially in an 
oblique and tangential sort of way, so as not to look 
like downright flattery. 

Yes, yes, I have amused a summer or two with 
insects, among other things. I described a new ta- 
hanus, — horsefly, you know, — which, I think, had 
escaped notice. I felt as grand when I showed up my 
new discovery as if I had created the beast. I don't 
doubt Herschel felt as if he had made a planet when 
he first showed the astronomers Georgium Sidus, as 
he called it. And that reminds me of something. I 
was riding on the outside of a stage-coach from Lon- 
don to Windsor in the year — never mind the year, 
but it must have been in June, I suppose, for I bought 
some strawberries. England owes me a sixpence with 
interest from date, for I gave the woman a shilling, 
and the coach contrived to start or the woman timed 
it so that I just missed getting my change. What an 
odd thing memory is, to be -sure, to have kept such a 
triviality, and have lost so much that was invaluable ! 
She is a crazy wench, that Mnemosyne ; she throws 
her jewels out of the window and locks up straws and 
old rags in her strong box. 

[Be profundts ' said I to myself, the bottom of 
the bushel has dropped out ! Sancta Maria, ora pro 
nobis /] 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2d7 

— But as I was saying, I was riding on the outside 
of a stage-coach from London to Windsor, when all at 
once a picture familiar to me from my New England 
village childhood came upon me like a reminiscence 
rather than a revelation. It was a mighty bewilder- 
ment of slanted masts and spars and ladders and ropes, 
from the midst of which a vast tube, looking as if it 
might be a piece of ordnance such as the revolted an- 
gels battered the walls of Heaven with, according to 
Milton, lifted its muzzle defiantly towards the sky. 
Why, you blessed old rattletrap, said I to myself, I 
know you as well as I know my father's spectacles and 
snuff-box ! And that same crazy witch of a Memory, 
so divinely wise and foolish, travels thirty-five hundred 
miles or so in a single pulse-beat, makes straight for an 
old house and an old library and an old corner of it, 
and whisks out a volume of an old cyclopaedia, and 
there is the picture of which this is the original. Sir 
William Herschel's great telescope ! It was just about 
as big, as it stood there by the roadside, as it was in 
the picture, not much different any way. Why should 
it be ? The pupil of your eye is only a gimlet-hole, 
not so very much bigger than the eye of a sail-needle, 
and a camel has to go through it before you can see 
him. You look into a stereoscope and think you see 
a miniature of a building or a mountain ; you don't, 
you 're made a fool of by your lying intelligence, as 
you caU it ; you see the building and the mountain 
just as large as with your naked eye looking straight 

Q 



258 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

at the real objects. Doubt it, do you? Perhaps 
you 'd like to doubt it to the music of a couple of gold 
five-dollar pieces. If you would, say the word, and 
man and money, as Messrs. Heenan and Morrissey 
have it, shall be forthcoming; for I will make you 
look at a real landscape with your right eye, and a 
stereoscopic view of it with your left eye, both at 
once, and you can slide one over the other by a little 
management and see how exactly the picture overlies 
the true landscape. We won't try it now, because I 
want to read you something out of my book. 

— I have noticed that the Master very rarely fails 
to come back to his original proposition, though he, 
like myself, is fond of zigzagging in order to reach it. 
Men's minds are like the pieces on a chess-board in 
their way of moving. One mind creeps fi:'om the 
square it is on to the next, straight forward, like the 
pawns. Another sticks close to its own line of thought 
and follows it as far as it goes, with no heed for 
others' opinions, as the bishop sweeps the board in the 
line of his own color. And another class of minds 
break through everything that lies before them, ride 
over argument and opposition, and go to the end of 
the board, like the castle. But there is still another 
sort of intellect which is very apt to jump over the 
thought that stands next and come down in the un- 
expected way of the knight. But that same knight, 
as the chess manuals will show you, will contrive to 
get on to every square of the board in a pretty series 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 259 

of moves that looks like a pattern of embroidery, and 
so these zigzagging minds like the Master's, and I sup- 
pose my own is something like it, will sooner or later 
get back to the square next the one they started 
from. 

The Master took down a volume from one of the 
shelves. I could not help noticing that it was a shelf 
near his hand as he sat, and that the volume looked 
as if he had made frequent use of it. I saw, too, that 
he handled it in a loving sort of way ; the tenderness 
he would have bestowed on a wife and children had to 
find a channel somewhere, and what more natural 
than that he should look fondly on the volume which 
held the thoughts that had rolled themselves smooth 
and round in his mind like pebbles on a beach, the 
dreams which, under cover of the simple artifices such 
as all writers use, told the little world of readers his 
secret hopes and aspirations, the fancies which had 
pleased him and which he could not bear to let die 
without trying to please others with them ? I have a 
great sympathy with authors, most of all with un- 
successfal ones. If one had a dozen lives or so, it 
would all be very well, but to have only a single ticket 
in the great lottery, and have that drawn a blank, is a 
rather sad sort of thing. So I was pleased to see the 
affectionate kind of pride with which the Master 
handled his book ; it was a success, in its way, and he 
looked on it with a cheerftd sense that he had a right 
to be proud of it. The Master opened the volume. 



260 THE POET AT THE BEE AKFAST-T ABLE. 

and, putting on his large round glasses, began reading, 
as authors love to read that love their books. 

— The only good reason for believing in the stability 
of the moral order of things is to be found in the 
tolerable steadiness of human averages. Out of a 
hundred human beings fifty-one will be found in the 
long run on the side of the right, so far as they know 
it, and against the wrong. They will be organizers 
rather than disorganizers, helpers and not hinderers in 
the upward movement of the race. This is the main 
fact we have to depend on. The right hand of the 
great organism is a little stronger than the left, that 
is all. 

Now and then we come across a left-handed man. 
So now and then we find a tribe or a generation, the 
subject of what we may call moral left-handedness, but 
that need not trouble us about our formula. All we 
have to do is to spread the average over a wider terri- 
tory or a longer period of time. Any race or period 
that insists on being left-handed must go under if it 
comes in contact with a right-handed one. If there 
were, as a general rule, fifty-one rogues in the hundred 
instead of forty-nine, all other qualities of ^mind and 
body being equaUy distributed between the two sec- 
tions, the order of things would sooner or later end in 
universal disorder. It is the question between the 
leak and the pumps. 

It does not seem very likely that the Creator of all 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 261 

things is taken by surprise at witnessing anything any 
of his creatures do or think. Men have sought out 
many inventions, but they can have contrived nothing 
which did not exist as an idea in the omniscient con- 
sciousness to which past, present, and future are alike 
Now. 

We read what travellers tell us about the King of 
Dahomey, or the Fejee Island people, or the short and 
simple annals of the celebrities recorded in the New- 
gate Calendar, and do not know just what to make of 
these brothers and sisters of the race ; but I do not 
suppose an intelligence even as high as the angelic 
beings, to stop short there, would see anything very 
peculiar or wonderful about them, except as everything 
is wonderful and unlike everything else. 

It is very curious to see how science, that is, looking 
at and arranging the facts of a case with our own eyes 
and our own intelligence, without minding what some- 
body else has said, or how some old majority vote 
went in a pack of intriguing ecclesiastics, — I say it is 
very curious to see how science is catching up with 
one superstition after another. 

There is a recognized branch of science familiar to 
all those who know anything of the studies relating to 
life, under the name of Teratology. It deals with aU 
sorts of monstrosities which are to be met with in 
living beings, and more especially in animals. It is 
found that what used to be called lusus naturcB, 
or freaks of nature, are just as much subject to 



262 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST -TABLE. 

laws as the naturally developed forms of living crea- 
tures. 

The rustic looks at the Siamese twins, and thinks 
he is contemplating an unheard-of anomaly ; but there 
are plenty of cases like theirs in the books of scholars, 
and though they are not quite so common as double 
cherries, the mechanism of their formation is not a 
whit more mysterious than that of the twinned fruits. 
Such cases do not disturb the average arrangement ; 
we have Changs and Engs at one pole, and Cains and 
Abels at the other. One child is born with six fingers 
on each hand, and another falls short by one or more 
fingers of his due allowance ; but the glover puts his 
faith in the great law of averages, and makes his 
gloves with five fingers apiece, trusting nature for their 
counterparts. 

Thinking people are not going to be scared out of 
explaining or at least trying to explain things by the 
shrieks of persons whose beliefs are disturbed thereby. 
Comets ^ere portents to Increase Mather, President 
of Harvard College ; " preachers of Divine wrath, 
heralds and messengers of evil tidings to the world." 
It is not so very long since Professor Winthrop was 
teaching at the same institution. I can remember 
two of his boys very well, old boys, it is true, they 
were, and one of them wore a three-cornered cocked 
hat ; but the father of these boys, whom, as I say, I can 
remember, had to defend himself against the minister 
of the Old South Church for the impiety of trying to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 263 

account for earthquakes on natural principles. And 
his ancestor, Governor Winthrop, would probably have 
shaken his head over his descendant's dangerous 
audacity, if one may judge by the solemn way in 
which he mentions poor Mrs. Hutchinson's unpleas- 
ant experience, which so grievously disappointed her 
maternal expectations. But people used always to be 
terribly frightened by those irregular vital products 
which we now call " interesting specimens " and 
carefully preserve in jars of alcohol. It took next to 
nothing to make a panic ; a child was born a few 
centuries ago with six teeth in its head, and about that 
time the Turks began gaining great advantages over 
the Christians. Of course there was an intimate con- 
nection between the prodigy and the calamity. So 
said the wise men of that day. 

All these out-of-the-way cases are studied connect- 
edly now, and are found to obey very exact rules. 
With a little management one can even manufacture 
living monstrosities. Malformed salmon and other fish 
can be supplied in quantity, if anybody happens to 
want them. 

Now, what all I have said is tending to is exactly 
this, namely, that just as the celestial movements are 
regulated by fixed laws, just as bodily monstrosities are 
produced according to rule, and with as good reason 
as normal shapes, so obliquities of character are to be 
accounted for on perfectly natural principles ; they are 
just as capable of classification as the bodily ones, and 



264 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

they all diverge from a certain average or middle term 
whicli is the type of its kind. 

If life had been a little longer I would have written 
a number of essays for which, as it is, I cannot expect 
to have time. I have set down the titles of a hundred 
or more, and I have often been tempted to publish 
these, for according to my idea, the title of a book 
very often renders the rest of it unnecessary. ^^ Moral 
Teratology," for instance, which is marked No. 67 on 
my list of " Essays Potential, not Actual," suggests 
sufficiently well what I should be like to say in the 
pages it would preface. People hold up their hands 
at a moral monster as if there was no reason for his 
existence but his own choice. That was a fine speci- 
men we read of in the papers a few years ago, — the 
Frenchman, it may be remembered, who used to way- 
lay and murder young women, and after appropriating 
their effects, bury their bodies in a private cemetery 
he kept for that purpose. It is very natural, and I do 
not say it is not very proper, to hang such eccentric 
persons as this ; but it is not clear whether his vagaries 
produce any more sensation at Head-quarters than the 
meek enterprises of the mildest of city missionaries. 
For the study of Moral Teratology will teach you that 
you do not get such a malformed character as that 
without a long chain of causes to account for it ; and 
if you only knew those causes, you would know per- 
fectly well what to expect. You may feel pretty sure 
that our friend of the private cemetery was not the 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 265 

child of pious and intelligent parents ; that he was not 
nurtured by the best of mothers, and educated by the 
most judicious teachers ; and that he did not come of a 
lineage long known and honored for its intellectual and 
moral qualities. Suppose that one should go to the 
worst quarter of the city and pick out the worst-look- 
ing child of the worst couple he could find, and then 
train him up successively at the School for Infant 
Rogues, the Academy for Young Scamps, and the 
College for Complete Criminal Education, would it be 
reasonable to expect a Frangois Xavier or a Henry 
Martyn to be the result of such a training ? The tra^ 
ditionists, in whose presumptuous hands the science 
of anthropology has been trusted from time imme- 
morial, have insisted on eliminating cause and effect 
from the domain of morals. When they have come 
across a moral monster they have seemed to think that 
he put himself together, having a free choice of all the 
constituents which make up manhood, and that conse- 
quently no punishment could be too bad for him. 

I say. Hang him and welcome, if that is the best 
thing for society ; hate him, in a certain sense, as you 
hate a rattlesnake, but, if you pretend to be a phi- 
losopher, recognize the fact that what you hate in him 
is chiefly misfortune, and that if you had been bom 
with his villanous low forehead and poisoned in- 
stincts, and bred among creatures of the Races 
Maudites whose natural history has to be studied like 
that of beasts of prey and vermin, you would not have 

12 



266 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

been sitting there in your gold-bowed spectacles and 
passing judgment on the peccadilloes of your fellow- 
creatures. 

I have seen men and women so disinterested and 
noble, and devoted to the best works, that it appeared 
to me if any good and faithful servant was entitled 
to enter into the joys of his Lord, such as these might 
be. But I do not know that I ever met with a human 
being who seemed to me to have a stronger claim on 
the pitying consideration and kindness of his Maker 
than a wretched, puny, crippled, stunted child that I 
saw in Newgate, who was pointed out as one of the 
most notorious and inveterate little thieves in London. 
I have no doubt that some of those who were looking 
at this pitiable morbid secretion of the diseased social 
organism thought they were very virtuous for hating 
him so heartily. 

It is natural, and in one sense is aJl right enough. 
I want to catch a thief and put the extinguisher on an 
incendiary as much as my neighbors do ; but I have 
two sides to my consciousness as I have two sides to 
my heart, one carrying dark, impure blood, and the 
other the bright stream which has been purified and 
vivified by the great source of life and death, — the 
oxygen of the air which gives all things their vital 
heat, and bums all things at last to ashes. 

One side of me loves and hates ; the other side of 
me judges, say rather pleads and suspends judgment. 
I think, if I were left to myself, I should hang a rogue 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 267 

and then write his apology and subscribe to a neat 
monument, commemorating, not his virtues, but his 
misfortunes. I should, perhaps, adorn the marble with 
emblems, as is the custom with regard to the more reg- 
ular and nonually constituted members of society. It 
would not be proper to put the image of a lamb upon 
the stone which marked the resting-place of him of 
the private cemetery. But I would not hesitate to 
place the effigy of a wolf or a hyena upon the monu- 
ment. I do not judge these animals, I only kill them 
or shut them up. I presume they stand just as well 
with their Maker as lambs and kids, and the existence 
of such beings is a perpetual plea for God Almighty's 
poor, yelling, scalping Indians, his weasand-stopping 
Thugs, his despised felons, his murdering miscreants, 
and all the unfortunates whom we, picked individuals 
of a picked class of a picked race, scrubbed, combed, 
and catechized from our cradles upward, undertake to 
find accommodations for in another state of being 
where it is to be hoped they will have a better chance 
than they had in this. 

The Master paused, and took ofi" his great round 
spectacles. I could not help thinking that he looked 
benevolent enough to pardon Judas Iscariot just at 
that moment, though his features can knot themselves 
up pretty formidably on occasion. 

— You are somewhat of a phrenologist, I judge, by 
the way you talk of instinctive and inherited tenden- 
cies, — I said. 



268 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— They tell me I ought to be, — he answered, par- 
rying my question, as I thought. — I have had a 
famous chart made out of my cerebral organs, accord- 
ing to which I ought to have been — something more 
than a poor Magister Artiiim. 

— I thought a shade of regret deepened the lines 
on his broad, antique-looking forehead, and I began 
talking about all the sights I had seen in the way of 
monstrosities, of which I had a considerable list, as 
you will see when I tell you my weakness in that 
direction. This, you understand, Beloved, is private 
and confidential. 

I pay my quarter of a dollar and go into all the 
side-shows that follow the caravans and circuses round 
the country. I have made friends of all the giants 
and all the dwarfs. I became acquainted with Mon- 
sieur Bihin, le plus hel homme du monde, and one of 
the biggest, a great many years ago, and have kept up 
my agreeable relations with him ever since. He is a 
most interesting giant, with a softness of voice and 
tenderness of feeling which I find very engaging. I 
was on friendly terms with Mr. Charles Freeman, a 
very superior giant of American birth, seven feet four, 
I think, in height, " double-jointed," of mylodon mus- 
cularity, the same who in a British prize-ring tossed 
the Tipton Slasher from one side of the rope to the 
other, and now lies stretched, poor fellow ! in a 
mighty grave in the same soil which holds the sacred 
ashes of Cribb, and the honored dust of Burke, — not 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 269 

the one " commonly called the sublime," but that other 
Burke to whom Nature had denied the sense of hear- 
ing lest he should be spoiled by listening to the praises 
of the admiring circles which looked on his dear-bought 
triumphs. Nor have I despised those little ones whom 
that devout worshipper of Nature in her exceptional 
forms, the distinguished Barnum, has introduced to 
the notice of mankind. The General touches his 
chapeau to me, and the Commodore gives me a sailor's 
greeting. I have had confidential interviews with the 
double-headed daughter of Africa, — so far, at least, 
as her twofold personality admitted of private confi- 
dences. I have listened to the touching experiences 
of the Bearded Lady, whose rough cheeks belie her 
susceptible heart. Miss Jane Campbell has allowed me 
to question her on the delicate subject of avoirdupois 
equivalents ; and the armless fair one, whose embrace 
no monarch could hope to win, has wrought me a 
watch-paper with those despised digits which have 
been degraded from gloves to boots in our evolution 
from the condition of quadrumana. 

I hope you have read my experiences as good- 
naturedly as the Old Master listened to them. He 
seemed to be pleased with my whim, and promised 
to go with me to see all the side-shows of the next 
caravan. Before I left him he wrote my name in a 
copy of the new edition of his book, telling me that it 
would not all be new. to me by a great deal, for he 



270 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

often talked what he had printed to make up for 
having printed a good deal of what he had talked. 

Here is the passage of his Poem the Young Astron- 
omer read to us. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. 

IV. 

From my lone turret as I look around 
O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, 
From slope, from summit, and from half-hid vale 
The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed spires, 
Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, 
Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the world, 
" Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware ; 
See that it has our trade-mark ! You will buy 
Poison instead of food across the way. 
The lies of* — — this or that, each several name 
The standard's blazon and the battle-cry 
Of some true-gospel faction, and again 
The token of the Beast to all beside. 
And grouped round each I see a huddling crowd 
Alike in all things save the words they use ; 
In love, in longing, hate and fear the same. 

Whom do we trust and serve ? We speak of one 
And bow to many ; Athens still would find 
The shrines of all she worshipped safe within 
Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones 
That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. 
The god of music rules the Sabbath choir ; 
The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 271 

To help us please the dilettante's ear ; 
Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave 
The portals of the temple where we knelt 
And listened while the god of eloquence 
(Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised 
In sable vestments) with that other god 
Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nox, 
Fights in unequal contest for our souls ; 
The dreadful sovereign of the under world 
Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear 
The baying of the triple-throated hound ; 
Eros is young as ever, and as fair 
The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam. 

These be thy gods, O Israel ! Who is he. 
The one ye name and tell us that ye serve. 
Whom ye would call me from my lonely tower 
To worship with the many-headed throng ? 
Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove 
In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire ? 
The God who dealt with Abraham as the sons 
Of that old patriarch deal with other men ? 
The jealous God of Moses, one who feels 
An image as an insult, and is wroth 
With him who made it and his child unborn ? 
The God who plagued his people for the sin 
Of their adulterous king, beloved of him, — 
The same who offers to a chosen few 
The right to praise him in eternal song 
While a vast shrieking world of endless woe 
Blends ite dread chorus with their rapturous hymn ? 
Is this the God ye mean, or is it he 
Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving heart 
Is as the pitying father's to his child, 



272 THE POET AT THE BEE AKFAST-T ABLE. 

Whose lesson to his children is, " Forgive," 

Whose plea for all, " They know not what they do ** ? 

I claim the right of knowing whom I serve, 
Else is my service idle ; He that asks 
My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. 
To crawl is not to worship ; we have learned 
A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, 
Hanging our prayers on hinges, till we ape 
The flexures of the many-jointed worm. 
Asia has taught her AUahs and salaams 
To the world's children, — we have grown to men ! 
We who have rolled the sphere beneath our feet 
To find a virgin forest, as we lay 
The beams of our rude temple, first of all 
Must frame its doorway high enough for man 
To pass unstooping ; knowing as we do 
That He who shaped us last of living forms 
Has long enough been served by creeping things, 
Reptiles that left their foot-prints in the sand 
Of old sea-margins that have turned to stone. 
And men who learned their ritual ; we demand 
To know him first, then trust him and then love 
When we have found him worthy of our love, 
Tried by our own poor hearts and not before ; 
He must be truer than the truest friend, 
He must be tenderer than a woman's love, 
A father better than the best of sires ; 
Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin 
Oftener than did the brother we are told, 
We — poor ill-tempered mortals — must forgive, 
Though seven times sinning threescore times and ten. 

This is the new world's gospel : Be ye men I 
Try well the legends of the children's time ; 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 273 

Ye are the chosen people, God has led 

Your steps across the desert of the deep 

As now across the desert of the shore ; 

Mountains are cleft before you as the sea 

Before the wandering tribe of Israel's sons ; 

Still onward rolls the thunderous caravan, 

Its coming printed on the western sky, 

A cloud by day, by night a pillared flame ; 

Your prophets are a hundred unto one 

Of them of old who cried, " Thus saith the Lord"; 

They told of cities that should fall in heaps. 

But yours of mightier cities that shall rise 

"Where yet the lonely fishers spread theu- nets, 

Where hides the fox and hoots the midnight owl ; 

The tree of knowledge in your garden grows 

Not single, but at every humble door; 

Its branches lend you their immortal food, 

That fills you with the sense of what ye are, 

No servants of an altar hewed and carved 

From senseless stone by craft of human hands, 

Rabbi, or dervish, brahmin, bishop, bonze. 

But masters of the charm with which they work 

To keep your hands from that forbidden tree ! 

Ye that have tasted that divinest fruit. 
Look on this world of yours with opened eyes ! 
Ye are as gods ! Nay, makers of your gods, — 
Each day ye break an image in your shrine 
And plant a fairer image where it stood : 
Where is the Moloch of your fathers' creed, 
Whose fires of torment burned for span-long babes ? 
Fit object for a tender mother s love ! 
Why not ? It was a bargain duly made 
For these same infants through the surety's act 
Intrusted with their all for earth and heaven, 

12* R 



274 THE POET AT THE BKEAKF AST-TABLE. 

By Him who chose their guardian, knowing well 
His fitness for the task, — this, even this, 
Was the true doctrine only yesterday 
As thoughts are reckoned, — and to-day you hear 
In words that sound as if from human tongues 
Those monstrous, uncouth horrors of the past 
That blot the blue of heaven and shame the earth 
As would the saurian s of the age of slime, 
Awaking from their stony sepulchres 
And wallowing hateful in the eye of day ! 

Four of us listened to these lines as the young man 
read them, — the Master and myself and our two 
ladies. This was the little party we got up to hear 
him read. I do not think much of it was very new to 
the Master or myself. At any rate, he said to me 
when we were alone, — 

That is the kind of talk the " natural man," as the 
theologians call him, is apt to fall into. 

— I thought it was the Apostle Paul, and not the 
theologians, that used the term "natural man," — I 
ventured to suggest. 

— I should like to know where the Apostle Paul 
learned English ? — said the Master, with the look of 
one who does not mean to be tripped up if he can 
help himself. — But at any rate, — he continued, — 
the " natural man," so called, is worth listening to now 
and then, for he did n't make his nature, and the Devil 
did n't make it ; and if the Almighty made it, I never 
saw or heard of anything he made that was n't worth 
attending to. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 275 

The young man begged the Lady to pardon anything 
that might sound harshly in these crude thoughts of 
his. He had been taught strange things, he said, from 
old theologies, when he was a child, and had thought 
his way out of many of his early superstitions. As for 
the Young Girl, our Scheherazade, he said to her that 
she must have got dreadfully tired (at which she col- 
ored up and said it was no such thing), and he prom- 
ised that, to pay for her goodness in listening, he 
would give her a lesson in astronomy the next fair 
evening, if she would be his scholar, at which she 
blushed deeper than before, and said something which 
certainly was not No. 



IX. 



There was no sooner a vacancy on our side of the 
table, than the Master proposed a change of seats 
which would bring the Young Astronomer into our 
immediate neighborhood. The Scarabee was to move 
into the place of our late unlamented associate, the 
Man of Letters, so called. I was to take his place, 
the Master to take mine, and the young man that 
which had been occupied by the Master. The advan- 
tages of this change were obvious. The Old Master 
likes an audience, plainly enough ; and with myself on 
one side of him, and the young student of science. 



276 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

whose speculative turn is sufficiently shown in the 
passages from his poem^ on the other side, he may feel 
quite sure of being listened to. There is only one 
trouble in the arrangement, and that is that it brings 
this young man not only close to us, but also next to 
our Scheherazade. 

I am obliged to confess that he has shown occa- 
sional marks of inattention even while the Master was 
discoursing in a way that I found agreeable enough, 
I am quite sure it is no intentional disrespect to the 
Old Master. It seems to me rather that he has be- 
come interested in the astronomical lessons he has 
been giving the Young Girl. He has studied so much 
alone, that it is naturally a pleasure to him to impart 
some of his knowledge. As for his young pupil, she 
has often thought of being a teacher herself, so that 
she is of course very glad to acquire any accomplish- 
ment that may be useful to her in that capacity. I do 
not see any reason why some of the boarders should 
have made such remarks as they have done. One 
cannot teach astronomy to advantage, without going 
out of doors, though I confess that when two young 
people go out hy daylight to study the stars, as these 
young folks have done once or twice, I do not so much 
wonder at a remark or suggestion from those who have 
nothing better to do than study their neighbors. 

I ought to have told the reader before this that I 
found, as I suspected, that our innocent-looking Sche- 
herazade was at the bottom of the popgun business. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 277 

I watched her very closely, and one day, when the 
little monkey made us all laugh by stopping the Mem- 
ber of the Haouse in the middle of a speech he was 
repeating to us, — it was his great effort of the season 
on a bill for the protection of horn-pout in Little 
Muddy River, — I caught her making the signs that 
set him going. At a slight tap of her knife against 
her plate, he got all ready^ and presently I saw her 
cross her knife and fork upon her plate, and as she did 
so, pop ! went the small piece of artillery. The Mem- 
ber of the Haouse was just saying that this bill hit his 
constitooents in their most vital — when a pellet hit 
him in the feature of his countenance most exposed to 
aggressions and least tolerant of liberties. The Mem- 
ber resented this unparliamentary treatment by jump- 
ing up from his chair and giving the small aggressor a 
good shaking, at the same time seizing the implement 
which had caused his wrath and breaking it into splin- 
ters. The Boy blubbered, the Young Girl changed 
color, and looked as if she would cry, and that was the 
last of these interruptions. 

I must own that I have sometimes wished we had 
the popgun back, for it answered all the purpose of 
"the previous question" in a deliberative assembly. 
No doubt the Young Girl was capricious in setting 
the little engine at work, but she cut short a good 
many disquisitions that threatened to be tedious. 1 
find myself often wishing for her and her small fellow- 
conspirator's intervention, in company where I am sup- 



278 THE POET AT THE BEE AKFAST-T ABLE. 

posed to be enjoying myself. When my friend the 
politician gets too far into the personal details of the 
quorum pars magna fui, I find myself all at once ex- 
claiming in mental articulation, Popgun ! When my 
friend the story-teller begins that protracted narrative 
which has often emptied me of all my voluntary 
laughter for the evening, he has got but a very little 
way when I say to myself, What would n't I give for a 
pellet from that popgun ! In short, so useful has that 
trivial implement proved as a jaw-stopper and a hori- 
cide, that I never go to a club or a dinner-party, with- 
out wishing the company included our Scheherazade 
and That Boy with his popgun. 

How clearly I see now into the mechanism of the 
Young Girl's audacious contrivance for regulating our 
table-talk ! Her brain is tired half the time, and she 
is too nervous to listen patiently to what a quieter 
person would like well enough, or at least would 
not be annoyed by. It amused her to invent a scheme 
for managing the headstrong talkers, and also let off a 
certain spirit of mischief which in some of these ner- 
vous girls shows itself in much more questionable 
forms. How cunning these half-hysteric young per- 
sons are, to be sure ! I had to watch a long time 
before I detected the telegraphic communication be- 
tween the two conspirators. I have no doubt she had 
sedulously schooled the little monkey to his business, 
and found great delight in the task of instruction. 

But now that our Scheherazade has become a 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 279 

scholar instead of a teacher, she seems to be under- 
going a remarkable transformation. Astronomy is 
indeed a noble science. It may well kindle the en- 
thusiasm of a youthful nature. I fancy at times that 
I see something of that starry light which I noticed in 
the young man's eyes gradually kindling in hers. But 
can it be astronomy alone that does it? Her color 
comes and goes more readily than when the Old 
Master sat next her on the left. It is having this 
young man at her side, I suppose. Of course it is. I 
watch her with great, I may say tender interest. If 
he would only fall in love with her, seize upon her 
wandering affections and fancies as the Romans seized 
the Sabine virgins, lift her out of herself and her list- 
less and weary drudgeries, stop the outflow of this 
young life which is draining itself away in forced 
literary labor — dear me, dear me — if, if, if — 

*' If I were God 
An' ye were Martin Elginbrod ! " 

I am afraid all this may never be. I fear that he is 
too much given to lonely study, to self-companionship, 
to all sorts of questionings, to looking at life as at a 
solemn show where he is only a spectator. I dare not 
build up a romance on what I have yet seen. My 
reader may, but I wiU answer for nothing. I shall 
wait and see. 

The Old Master and t have at last made that visit 
to the Scarabee which we had so long promised our- 
selves. 



280 THE POET AY THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

When we knocked at his door he came and opened 
it, instead of saying, Come in. He was surprised, I 
have no doubt, at the sound of our footsteps ; for he 
rarely has a visitor, except the little monkey of a boy, 
and he may have thought a troop of marauders were 
coming to rob him of his treasures. Collectors feel so 
rich in the possession of their rarer specimens, that 
they forget how cheap their precious things seem to 
common eyes, and are as afraid of being robbed as 
if they were dealers in diamonds. They have the 
name of stealing from each other now and then, it 
is true, but many of their priceless possessions would 
hardly tempt a beggar. Values are artificial : you 
will not be able to get ten cents of the year 1799 for a 
dime. 

The Scarabee was reassured as soon as he saw our 
faces, and he welcomed us not ungraciously into his 
small apartment. It was hard to find a place to sit 
down, for all the chairs were already occupied by cases 
and boxes full of his favorites. I began, therefore, 
looking round the room. Bugs of every size and 
aspect met my eyes wherever they turned. I felt for 
the moment as I suppose a man may feel in a fit 
of delirium tremens. Presently my attention was 
drawn towards a very odd-looking insect on the 
mantel-piece. This animal was incessantly raising 
its arms as if towards heaven and clasping them 
together, as though it were wrestling in prayer. 

Do look at this creature, — I said to the Master, — 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 281 

he seems to be very hard at work at his devo- 
tions. 

Mantis religiosa, — said the Master, — I know the 
praying rogue. Mighty devout and mighty cruel; 
crushes everything he can master, or impales it on his 
spiny shanks and feeds upon it, like a gluttonous 
wretch as he is. I have seen the Mantis religiosa on a 
larger scale than this, now and then. A sacred insect, 
sir, — sacred to many tribes of men ; to the Hotten- 
tots, to the Turks, yes, sir, and to the Frenchmen, who 
call the rascal ]prie dieu, and believe him to have 
special charge of children that have lost their way. 
Does n't it seem as if there was a vein of satire as well 
as of fun that ran through the solemn manifestations 
of creative wisdom ? And of deception too — do you 
see how nearly those dried leaves resemble an insect ? 

They do, indeed, — I answered, — but not so closely 
as to deceive me. They remind me of an insect, but 
I could not mistake them for one. 

— O, you could n't mistake those dried leaves for 
an insect, hey ? Well, how can you mistake that in- 
sect for dried leaves ? That is the question ; for 
insect it is, — phyllum siccifolium, the " walking leaf," 
as some have called it. — The Master had a hearty 
laugh at my expense. 

The Scarabee did not seem to be amused at the 
Master's remarks or at my blunder. Science is always 
perfectly serious to him ; and he would no more laugh 
over anything connected with his study, than a clergy- 
man would laugh at a fimeral. 



282 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

They send me all sorts of trumpery, — he said, — 
Orthoptera and Lepidoptera ; as if a coleopterist — a 
scarabeeist — cared for such things. This business is 
no boy's play to me. The insect population of the 
world is not even catalogued yet, and a lifetime given 
to the scarabees is a small contribution enough to 
their study. I like your men of general intelligence 
well enough, — your Linneeuses and your Buffons and 
your Cuviers ; but Cuvier had to go to Latreille for 
his insects, and if Latreille had been able to consult 
me, — yes, me, gentlemen ! — he would n't have made 
the blunders he did about some of the coleoptera. 

The Old Master, as I think you must have found 
out by this time, — you. Beloved, I mean, who read 
every word, — has a reasonably good opinion, as per- 
haps he has a right to have, of his own intelligence 
and acquirements. The Scarabee's exultation and 
glow as he spoke of the errors of the great entomol- 
ogist which he himself could have corrected, had the 
effect on the Old Master which a lusty crow has upon 
the feathered champion of the neighboring barn-yard. 
He too knew something about insects. Had he not 
discovered a new tabanus ? Had he not made prep- 
arations of the very coleoptera the Scarabee studied 
so exclusively, — preparations which the illustrious 
Swammerdam would not have been ashamed of, and 
dissected a melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durct 
heim himself ever did it ? So the Master, recalling 
these studies of his and certain difficult and disputed 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 283 

points at which he had labored in one of his ento- 
mological paroxysms, put a question which there can 
be little doubt was intended to puzzle the Scarabee, 
and perhaps, — for the best of us is human (I am 
beginning to love the Old Master, but he has his little 
weaknesses, thank Heaven, like the rest of us), — I 
say perhaps, was meant to show that some folks knew 
as much about some things as some other folks. 

The little dried-up specialist did not dilate into 
fighting dimensions as — perhaps, again — the Master 
may have thought he would. He looked a mild sur- 
prise, but remained as quiet as one of his own beetles 
when you touch him and he makes believe he is dead. 
The blank silence became oppressive. Was the Scara- 
bee crushed, as so many of his namesakes are crushed, 
under the heel of this trampling omniscient ? 

At last the Scarabee creaked out very slowly, '^ Did 
I understand you to ask the following question, to 
wit ? " and so forth ; for I was quite out of my depth, 
and only know that he repeated the Master's some- 
what complex inquiry, word for word. 

— That was exactly my question, — said the Mas- 
ter, — and I hope it is not uncivil to ask one which 
seems to me to be a puzzler. 

Not uncivil in the least, — said the Scarabee, with 
something as much like a look of triumph as his dry 
face permitted, — not uncivil at all, but a rather ex- 
traordinary question to ask at this date of entomo- 
logical history. I settled that question some years agO;, 



284 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

by a series of dissections, six-and-thirty in number, re- 
ported in an essay I can show you and would give you a 
copy of, but that I am a little restricted in my revenue, 
and our Society has to be economical, so I have but 
this one. You see, sir, — and he went on with elytra 
and antennae and tarsi and metatarsi and tracheae and 
stomata and wing-muscles and leg-muscles and gan- 
glions, — all plain enough, I do not doubt, to those 
accustomed to handling dor-bugs and squash-bugs 
and such undesirable objects of affection to all but 
naturalists. 

He paused when he got through, not for an answer, 
for there evidently was none, but to see how the Mas- 
ter would take it. The Scarabee had had it all his 
own way. 

The Master was loyal to his own generous nature. 
He felt as a peaceful citizen might feel who had 
squared off at a stranger for some supposed wrong, 
and suddenly discovered that he was undertaking to 
chastise Mr. Dick Curtis, " the pet of the Fancy," or 
Mr. Joshua Hudson, " the John Bull fighter." 

He felt the absurdity of his discomfiture, for he 
turned to me good-naturedly, and said, — 

" Poor Johnny Raw ! What madness could impel 
So rum a flat to face so prime a swell ? " 

To tell the truth, I rather think the Master enjoyed 
his own defeat. The Scarabee had a right to his vic- 
tory ; a man does not give his life to the study of a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 285 

single limited subject for nothing, and the moment we 
come across a first-class expert we begin to take a 
pride in his superiority. It cannot offend us, who 
have no right at all to be his match on his own 
ground. Besides, there is a very curious sense of sat- 
isfaction in getting a fair chance to sneer at ourselves 
and scoff at our own pretensions. The first person of 
our dual consciousness has been smirking and rubbing 
his hands and felicitating himself on his innumerable 
superiorities, until we have grown a little tired of him. 
Then, when the other fellow, the critic, the cynic, the 
Shimei, who has been quiet, letting self-love and self- 
glorification have their perfect work^ opens fire upon 
the first half of our personality and overwhelms it with 
that wonderful vocabulary of abuse of which he is 
the unrivalled master, there is no denying that he 
enjoys it immensely ; and as he is ourself for the 
moment, or at least the chief portion of ourself (the 
other half-self retiring into a dim corner of semicon- 
sciousness and cowering under the storm of sneers and 
contumely, — you follow me perfectly. Beloved, — 
the way is as plain as the path of the babe to the 
maternal fount), as, I say, the abusive fellow is the 
chief part of us for the time, and he likes to exercise 
his slanderous vocabulary, we on the whole enjoy a 
brief season of self-depreciation and self-scolding very 
heartily. 

It is quite certain that both of us, the Master and 
myself, conceived on the instant a respect for the 



286 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Scarabee which we had not before felt. He had 
grappled with one difficulty at any rate and mastered 
it. He had settled one thing, at least, so it appeared, 
in such a way that it was not to be brought up again. 
And now he was determined, if it cost him the effort 
of all his remaining days, to close another discussion 
and put forever to rest the anxious doubts about the 
larva of meloe. 

— Your thirty-six dissections must have cost you a 
deal of time and labor, — the Master said. 

— What have I to do with time, but to fill it up 
with labor ? — answered the Scarabee. — It is my 
meat and drink to work over my beetles. My holi- 
days are when I get a rare specimen. My rest is to 
watch the habits of insects, — those that I do not pre- 
tend to study. Here is my muscarium, my home for 
house-flies ; very interesting creatures ; here they breed 
and buzz and feed and enjoy themselves, and die in a 
good old age of a few months. My favorite insect 
lives in this other case ; she is at home, but in her 
private-chamber ; you shall see her. 

He tapped on the glass lightly, and a large, gray, 
hairy spider came forth from the hollow of a funnel- 
like web. 

— And this is all the friend you have to love ? — 
said the Master, with a tenderness in his voice which 
made the question very significant. 

— Nothing else loves me better than she does, that 
I know of, — he answered. . 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 287 

— To think of it ! Not even a dog to lick his hand, 
or a cat to purr and rub her fur against him ! 0, these 
boarding-houses, these boarding-houses ! What forlorn 
people one sees stranded on their desolate shores ! 
Decayed gentlewomen with the poor wrecks of what 
once made their households beautiful, disposed around 
them in narrow chambers as they best may be, coming 
down day after day, poor souls ! to sit at the board 
with strangers ; their hearts full of sad memories 
which have no language but a sigh, no record but the 
lines of sorrow on their features ; orphans, creatures 
with growing tendrils and nothing to cling to ; lonely 
rich men, casting about them what to do with the 
wealth they never knew how to enjoy, when they shall 
no longer worry over keeping and increasing it ; young 
men and young women, left to their instincts, un- 
guarded, unwatched, save by malicious eyes, which 
are sure to be found and to find occupation in these 
miscellaneous collections of human beings ; and now 
and then a shred of humanity like this little adust 
specialist, with just the resources needed to keep the 
" radical moisture " from entirely exhaling from his at- 
tenuated organism, and busying himself over a point of 
science, or compiling a hymn-book, or editing a gram- 
mar or a dictionary ; — such are the tenants of board- 
ing-houses whom we cannot think of without feeling 
how sad it is when the wind is not tempered to the 
shorn lamb ; when the solitary, whose hearts are shriv- 
elling, are not set in families I 



288 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The Master was greatly interested in the Scarabee's 
Muscarium. 

— I don't remember, — he said, — that I have 
heard of such a thing as that before. Mighty curi- 
ous creatures, these same house-flies ! Talk about 
miracles ! Was there ever anything more miracu- 
lous, so far as our common observation goes, than 
the coming and the going of these creatures ? Why 
did n't Job ask where the flies come from and where 
they go to ? I did not say that you and I don't know, 
but how many people do know anything about it? 
Where are the cradles of the young flies ? Where are 
the cemeteries of the dead ones, or do they die at all 
except when we kill them ? You think all the flies of 
the year are dead and gone, and there comes a warm 
day and all at once there is a general resurrection of 
'em ; they had been taking a nap, that is all. 

— I suppose you do not trust your spider in the 
Muscarium ? — said I, addressing the Scarabee. 

— Not exactly, — he answered, — she is a terrible 
creature. She loves me, I think, but she is a killer 
and a cannibal among other insects. I wanted to pair 
her with a male spider, but it would n't do. 

— Would n't do ? — said I, — why not ? Don't 
spiders have their mates as well as other folks ? 

— yes, sometimes ; but the females are apt to 
be particular, and if they don't like the mate you oflfer 
them they fall upon him and kill him and eat him up. 
You see they are a great deal bigger and stronger than 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 289 

the males, and they are always hungry and not always 
particularly anxious to have one of the other sex 
bothering round. 

— Woman's rights ! — said I, — there you have it ! 
Why don't those talking ladies take a spider as their 
emblem ? Let them form arachnoid associations, — 
spinsters and spiders would be a good motto. 

— The Master smiled. I think it was an elee- 
mosynary smile, for my pleasantry seems to me a par- 
ticularly basso rilievo, as I look upon it in cold blood. 
But conversation at the best is only a thin sprinkling 
of occasional felicities set in platitudes and common- 
places. I never heard people talk like the characters 
in the '^ School for Scandal," — I should very much 
like to. — I say the Master smiled. But the Scarabee 
did not relax a muscle of his countenance. 

— There are persons whom the very mildest of 
facetice sets off into such convulsions of laughter, that 
one is afraid lest they should injure themselves. Even 
when a jest misses fire completely, so that it is no jest 
at all, but only a jocular intention, they laugh just as 
heartily. Leave out the point of your story, get the 
word wrong on the duplicity of which the pun that 
was to excite hilarity depended, and they still honor 
your abortive attempt with the most lusty and vocifer- 
ous merriment. 

There is a very opposite class of persons whom any- 
thing in the nature of a joke perplexes, troubles, and 
even sometimes irritates, seeming to make them think 

13 « 



290 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

they are trifled with, if not insulted. If you are 
fortunate enough to set the whole table laughing, one 
of this class of persons will look inquiringly round, as 
if something had happened, and, seeing everybody ap- 
parently amused but himself, feel as if he was being 
laughed at, or at any rate as if something had been 
said which he was not to hear. Often, however, it 
does not go so far as this, and there is nothing more 
than mere insensibility to the cause of other people's 
laughter, a sort of joke-blindness, comparable to the 
well-known color-blindness with which many persons 
are afflicted as a congenital incapacity. 

I have never seen the Scarabee smile. I have seen 
him take off his goggles, — he breakfasts in these 
occasionally, — I suppose when he has been tiring his 
poor old eyes out over night gazing through his ml 
croscope, — I have seen him take his goggles off, 1 
say, and stare about him, when the rest of us were 
laughing at something which amused us, but his fea- 
tures betrayed nothing more than a certain bewilder- 
ment, as if we had been foreigners talking in an 
unknown tongue. I do not think it was a mere fancy 
of mine that he bears a kind of resemblance to the 
tribe of insects he gives his life to studying. His 
shiny black coat ; his rounded back, convex with years 
of stooping over his minute work ; his angular move- 
ments, made natural to him by his habitual style of 
manipulation ; the aridity of his organism, with which 
his voice is in perfect keeping ; — all these marks of 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 291 

his special sedentary occupation are so nearly what 
might be expected, and indeed so much in accordance 
with the more general fact that a man's aspect is sub- 
dued to the look of what he works in, that I do not 
feel disposed to accuse myself of exaggeration in my 
account of the Scarabee's appearance. But I think he 
has learned something else of his coleopterous friends. 
The beetles never smile. Their physiognomy is not 
adapted to the display of the emotions; the lateral 
movement of their jaws being effective for alimentary 
purposes, but very limited in its gamut of expression. 
It is with these unemotional beings that the Scarabee 
passes his life. He has but one object, and that is 
perfectly serious, to his mind, in fact, of absorbing 
interest and importance. In one aspect of the matter 
he is quite right, for if the Creator has taken the 
trouble to make one of his creatures in just such a 
way and not otherwise, from the beginning of its 
existence on our planet in ages of unknown remote- 
ness to the present time, the man who first explains 
His idea to us is charged with a revelation. It is by 
no means impossible that there may be angels in the 
celestial hierarchy to whom it would be new and inter- 
esting. I have often thought that spirits of a higher 
order than man might be willing to learn something 
from a human mind like that of Kewton, and I see no 
reason why an angelic being might not be glad to 
hear a lecture from Mr. Huxley, or Mr. Tyndall, or 
one of our friends at Cambridge. 



292 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I have been sinuous as the Links of Forth seen 
from Stirling Castle, or as that other river which 
threads the Berkshire valley and runs, a perennial 
stream, through my memory, — from which I please 
myself with thinking that I have learned to wind 
without fretting against the shore, or forgetting where 
I am flowing, — sinuous, I say, but not jerky, — no, 
not jerky or hard to follow for a reader of the right 
sort, in the prime of life' and full possession of his or 
her faculties. 

— All this last page or so, you readily understand, 
has been my private talk with you, the Reader. The 
cue of the conversation which I interrupted by this 
digression is to be found in the words " a good motto," 
from which I begin my account of the visit again. 

— Do you receive many visitors, — I mean verte- 
brates, not articulates ? — said the Master. 

I thought this question might perhaps bring il 
disiato riso, the long-wished-for smile, but the Scara- 
bee interpreted it in the simplest zoological sense, 
and neglected its hint of playfulness with the most 
absolute unconsciousness, apparently, of anything not 
entirely serious and literal. 

— You mean friends, I suppose, — he answered. — 
I have correspondents, but I have no friends except 
this spider. I live alone, except when I go to my 
subsection meetings ; I get a box of insects now and 
then, and send a few beetles to coleopterists in other 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 293 

entomological districts ; but science is exacting, and 
a man that wants to leave his record has not much 
time for friendship. There is no great chance either 
for making friends among naturalists. People that are 
at work on diflferent things do not care a great deal 
for each other's specialties, and people that work on 
the same thing are always afraid lest one should get 
ahead of the other, or steal some - of his ideas before 
he has made them public. There are none too many 
people you can trust in your laboratory. I thought I 
had a friend once, but he watched me at work and 
stole the discovery of a new species from me, and, 
what is more, had it named after himself. Since that 
time I have liked spiders better than men. They are 
hungry and savage, but at any rate they spin their own 
webs out of their own insides. I like very well to 
talk with gentlemen that play with my branch of en- 
tomology ; I do not doubt it amused you, and if you 
want to see anything I can show you, I shall have no 
scruple in letting you see it. I have never had any 
complaint to make of amatoors. 

— Upon my honor, — I would hold my right hand 
up and take my Bible-oath, if it was not busy with 
the pen at this moment, — I do not believe the Scara^ 
bee had the least idea in the world of the satire on the 
student of the Order of Things implied in his invita^ 
tion to the ^^ amatoor." As for the Master, he stood 
fire perfectly, as he always does; but the idea that 
he, who had worked a considerable part of several 



294 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

seasons at examining and preparing insects, who be- 
lieved himself to have given a new tabanus to the 
catalogue of native diptera, the idea that he was play- 
ing with science, and might be trusted anywhere as 
a harmless amateur, from whom no expert could 
possibly fear any anticipation of his unpublished dis- 
coveries, went beyond anything set down in that book 
of his which contained so much of the strainings of 
his wisdom. 

The poor little Scarabee began fidgeting round 
about this time, and uttering some half-audible words, 
apologetical, partly, and involving an allusion to re- 
freshments. As he spoke, he opened a small cup- 
board, and as he did so out bolted an uninvited 
tenant of the same, long in person, sable in hue, and 
swift of movement, on seeing which the Scarabee 
simply said, without emotion, hlatta, but I, forget- 
ting what was due to good manners, exclaimed cock- 
roach I 

We could not make up our minds to tax the Scara- 
bee's hospitality, already levied upon by the voracious 
articulate. So we both alleged a state of utter reple- 
tion, and did not solve the mystery of the contents of 
the cupboard, — not too luxurious, it maybe conjec- 
tured, and yet kindly offered, so that we felt there was 
a moist filament of the social instinct running like a 
nerve through that exsiccated and almost anhydrous 
organism. 

We left him with professions of esteem and respect 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 295 

which were real. We had gone, not to scoff, but very 
probably to smile, and I will not say we did not. 
But the Master was more thoughtful than usual. 

— If I had not solemnly dedicated myself to the 
study of the Order of Things, — he said, — I do verily 
believe I would give what remains to me of life to the 
investigation of some single point I could utterly evis- 
cerate and leave finally settled for the instruction and, 
it may be, the admiration of all coming time. The 
keel ploughs ten thousand leagues of ocean and leaves 
no trace of its deep-graven furrows. The chisel scars 
only a few inches on the face of a rock, but the story 
it has traced is read by a hundred generations. The 
eagle leaves no track of his path, no memory of the 
place where he built his nest ; but a patient moUusk 
has bored a little hole in a marble column of the 
temple of Serapis, and the monument of his labor out- 
lasts the altar and the statue of the divinity. 

— Whew ! — said I to myself, — that sounds a little 
like what we college boys used to call a " squirt." — 
The Master guessed my thought and said, smiling, 

— That is from one of my old lectures. A man's 
tongue wags along quietly enough, but his pen begins 
prancing as soon as it touches paper. I know what 
you are thinking — you 're thinking this is a squirt 
That word has taken the nonsense 'out of a good 
many high-stepping fellows. But it did a good deal 
of harm too, and it was a vulgar lot that applied it 
oftenest. 



296 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I am at last perfectly satisfied that our Landlady 
has no designs on the Capitalist, and as well convinced 
that any fancy of mine that he was like to make love 
to her was a mistake. The good woman is too much 
absorbed in her children, and more especially in " the 
Doctor," as she delights to call her son, to be the prey 
of any foolish desire of changing her condition. She 
is doing very well as it is, and if the young man suc- 
ceeds, as I have little question that he will, I think it 
probable enough that she will retire from her position 
as the head of a boarding-house. We have all liked 
the good woman who have lived with her, — I mean 
we three friends who have put ourselves on record. 
Her talk, I must confess, is a little diffuse and not 
always absolutely correct, according to the standard of 
the great Worcester; she is subject to lachrymose 
cataclysms and semiconvulsive upheavals when she 
reverts in memory to her past trials, and especially 
when she recalls the virtues of her deceased spouse, 
who was, I suspect, an adjunct such as one finds not 
rarely annexed to a capable matron in charge of an 
establishment like hers ; that is to say, an easy-going, 
harmless, fetch-'^iiQ-carry, carve-and-help, get-out-of-the- 
way kind of neuter, who comes up three times (as 
they say drowning people do) every day, namely, at 
breakfast, dinner, and tea, and disappears, submerged 
beneath the waves of life, during the intervals of these 
events. 

It is a source of genuine delight to me, who am of a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 297 

kindly nature enough, according to my own reckoning, 
to watch the good woman, and see what looks of pride 
and affection she bestows upon her Benjamin, and 
how, in spite of herself, the maternal feeling betrays 
its influence in her dispensations of those delicacies 
which are the exceptional element in our entertain- 
ments. I will not say that Benjamin's mess, like his 
Scripture namesake's, is five times as large as that of 
any of the others, for this would imply either an eco- 
nomical distribution to the guests in general or heap- 
ing the poor young man's plate in a way that would 
spoil the appetite of an Esquimau, but you may be 
sure he fares well if anybody does ; and I would have 
you understand that our Landlady knows what is what 
as well as who is who. 

I begin really to entertain very sanguine expecta^ 
tions of young Doctor Benjamin Franklin. He has 
lately been treating a patient whose good-will may 
prove of great importance to him. The Capitalist hurt 
one of his fingers somehow or other, and requested 
our young doctor to take a look at it. The young 
doctor asked nothing better than to take charge of the 
case, which proved more serious than might have been 
at first expected, and kept him in attendance more 
than a week. There was one very odd thing about it. 
The Capitalist seemed to have an idea that he was like 
to be ruined in the matter of bandages, — small strips 
of worn linen which any old woman could have spared 
him from her rag-bag, but which, with that strange 

13* 



298 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

perversity which long habits of economy give to a good 
many elderly people, he seemed to think were as pre- 
cious as if they had been turned into paper and stamped 
with promises to pay in thousands, from the national 
treasury. It was impossible to get this whim out of him, 
and the young doctor had tact enough to humor him 
in it. All this did not look very promising for the 
state of mind in which the patient was like to receive 
his bill for attendance when that should be presented. 
Doctor Benjamin was man enough, however, to come 
up to the mark, and sent him in such an account as it 
was becoming to send a man of ample means who had 
been diligently and skilfully cared for. He looked 
forward with some uncertainty as to how it would be 
received. Perhaps his patient would try to beat him 
down, and Doctor Benjamin made up his mind to 
have the whole or nothing. Perhaps he would pay 
the whole amount, but with a look, and possibly a 
word, that would make every dollar of it burn like a 
blister. 

Doctor Benjamin's conjectures were not unnatural, 
but quite remote from the actual fact. As soon as his 
patient had got entirely well, the young physician sent 
in his bill. The Capitalist requested him to step into 
his room with him, and paid the full charge in the 
handsomest and most gratifying way, thanking him for 
his skill and attention, and assuring him that he had 
had great satisfaction in submitting himself to such 
competent hands, and should certainly apply to him 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 299 

again in case he should have any occasion for a medi- 
cal adviser. We must not be too sagacious in judging 
people by the little excrescences of their character. Ex 
pede Herculem may often prove safe enough, but ex 
verruca Tullium is liable to mislead a hasty judge of 
his fellow-men. 

I have studied the people called misers and thought 
a good deal about them. In former years I used to 
keep a little gold by me in order to ascertain for my- 
self exactly the amount of pleasure to be got out of 
handling it ; this being the traditional delight of the 
old-fashioned miser. It is by no means to be despised. 
Three or four hundred dollars in double-eagles will do 
very well to experiment on. There is something very- 
agreeable in the yeUow gleam, very musical in the 
metallic clink, very satisfying in the singular weight, 
and very stimulating in the feeling that all the world 
over these same yellow disks are the master-keys that 
let one in wherever he wants to go, the servants that 
bring him pretty nearly everything he wants, except 
virtue, — and a good deal of what passes for that. 
I confess, then, to an honest liking for the splendors 
and the specific gravity and the manifold potentiality 
of the royal metal, and I understand, after a certain 
imperfect fashion, the delight that an old ragged 
wretch, starving himself in a crazy hovel, takes in 
stuffing guineas into old stockings and filling earthen 
pots with sovereigns, and every now and then visiting 
his hoards and fingering the fat pieces, and thinking 



300 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

over all that they represent of earthly and angelic and 
diabolic energy. A miser pouring out his guineas into 
his palm and bathing his shrivelled and trembling 
hands in the yellow heaps before him, is not the pro- 
saic being we are in the habit of thinking him. He is 
a dreamer, almost a poet. You and I read a novel or 
a poem to help our imaginations to build up palaces, 
and transport us into the emotional states and the 
felicitous conditions of the ideal characters pictured in 
the book we are reading. But think of him and the 
significance of the symbols he is handling as compared 
with the empty syllables and words we are using to 
build our aerial edifices with ! In this hand he holds 
the smUe of beauty and in that the dagger of revenge. 
The contents of that old glove will buy him the will- 
ing service of many an adroit sinner, and with what 
that coarse sack contains he can purchase the prayers 
of holy men for all succeeding time. In this chest is a 
castle in Spain, a real one, and not only in Spain, but 
anywhere he will choose to have it. If he would 
know what is the liberality of judgment of any of the 
straiter sects, he has only to hand over that box of 
rouleaux to the trustees of one of its educational insti- 
tutions for the endowment of two or three professor- 
ships. If he would dream of being remembered by 
coming generations, what monument so enduring as a 
college building that shall bear his name, and even 
when its solid masonry shall crumble give place to 
another still charged with the same sacred duty of per- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 301 

petuating his remembrance. Who was Sir Matthew 
Holworthy, that his name is a household word on the 
lips of thousands of scholars, and will be centuries hence, 
as that of Walter de Merton, dead six hundred years 
ago, is to-day at Oxford ? Who was Mistress Holden, 
that she should be blessed among women by having 
her name spoken gratefully and the little edifice she 
caused to be erected preserved as her monument from 
generation to generation ? All these possibilities, the 
lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life ; 
the tears of grateful orphans by the gallon ; the prayers 
of Westminster Assembly's Catechism divines by the 
thousand ; the masses of priests by the century ; — 
all these things, and more if more there be that the 
imagination of a lover of gold is like to range over, 
the miser hears and sees and feels and hugs and enjoys 
as he paddles with his lean hands among the sliding, 
shining, ringing, innocent-looking bits of yellow metal, 
toying with them as the lion-tamer handles the great 
carnivorous monster, whose might and whose terrors 
are child's play to the latent forces and power of harm- 
doing of the glittering counters played with in the 
great game between angels and devils. 

I have seen a good deal of misers, and I think I 
understand them as well as most persons do. But the 
Capitalist's economy in rags and his liberality to the 
young doctor are very oddly contrasted mth each 
other. I should not be surprised at any time to hear 
that he had endowed a scholarship or professorship or 



302 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

built a college dormitory, in spite of his curious parsi- 
mony in old linen. 

I do not know where our Young Astronomer got 
the notions that he expresses so freely in the lines that 
follow. I think the statement is true, however, which 
I see in one of the most popular Cyclopsedias, that 
" the non-clerical mind in all ages is disposed to look 
favorably upon the doctrine of the universal restora 
tion to holiness and happiness of all fallen intelli^ 
gences, whether human or angelic." Certainly, most 
of the poets who have reached the heart of men, since 
Burns dropped the tear for poor "auld Mckie-ben" 
that softened the stony-hearted theology of Scotland, 
have had "non-clerical" minds, and I suppose our 
young friend is in his humble way an optimist like 
them. What he says in verse is very much the same 
thing as what is said in prose in all companies, and 
thought by a great many who are thankful to anybody 
that will say it for them, — not a few clerical as well 
as " non-clerical " persons among them. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAK-DRIFTS. 

V. 

What am I but the creature Thou hast made ? 
What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent ? 
What hope I but Thy mercy and Thy love ? 
Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear ? 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 303 

Whose hand protect me from myself but Thine ? 

I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, 
Call on my sire to shield me from the ills 
That still beset my path, not trying me 
With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, 
He knowing I shall use them to my harm, 
And find a tenfold misery in the sense 
That in my childlike folly I have sprung 
The trap upon myself as vermin use 
Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. 
Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on 
To sweet perdition, but the self-same power 
That set the fearful engine to destroy 
His wretched offspring (as the Eabbis tell), 
And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs 
In such a show of innocent sweet flowers 
It lured the sinless angels and they fell ? 

Ah ! He who prayed the prayer of all mankind 
Summed in those few brief words the mightiest plea 
For erring souls before the courts of heaven, — 
Save us from being tempted, — lest we fall ! 

If we are only as the potter's clay 
Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, 
And broken into shards if we offend 
The eye of him who made us, it is well ; 
Such love as the insensate lump of clay 
That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel 
Bears to the hand that shapes its growing form,— 
Such love, no more, will be our hearts' return 
To the great Master-workman for his care, — 
Or would be, save that this, our breathing clay, 
Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads 
That make it conscious in its framer's band ; 



304 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

And this He must remember who has filled 
These vessels with the deadly draught of life, — 
Life, that means death to all it claims. Our love 
Must kindle in the ray that streams from heaven, 
A faint reflection of the light divine ; 
The sun must warm the earth before the rose 
Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the sun. 

He yields some fraction of the Maker's right 
Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of pain ; 
Is there not something in the pleading eye 
Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns 
The law that bids it suffer ? Has it not 
A claim for some remembrance in the book 
That fills its pages with the idle words 
Spoken of men ? Or is it only clay, 
Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, 
Yet all his own to treat it as he will 
And when he will to cast it at his feet. 
Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore ? 
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond 
His earthly master, would his love extend 
To Him who — Hush ! I will not doubt that He 
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong 
The least, the meanest of created things ! 

He would not trust me with the smallest orb 
That circles through the sky ; he would not give 
A meteor to my guidance ; would not leave 
The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand ; 
He locks my beating heart beneath its bars 
And keeps the key himself; he measures out 
The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, 
Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 305 

Each in its season ; ties me to my home, 
My race, my time, my nation, and my creed 
So closely that if I but sUp my wrist 
Out of the band that cuts it to the bone, 
Men say, " He hath a devil " ; he has lent 
All that I hold in trust, as unto one 
By reason of his weakness and his years 
Not fit to hold the smallest shred in fee 
Of those most common things he calls his own — 
And yet — my Rabbi tells me — he has left 
The care of that to which a million worlds 
FiUed with unconscious life were less than naught, 
Has left that mighty universe, the Soul, 
To the weak guidance of our baby hands, 
Turned us adrift with our immortal charge, 
Let the foul fiends have access at their will, 
Taking the shape of angels, to our hearts, — 
Our hearts already poisoned through and through 
With the fierce virus of ancestral sin. 
If what my Rabbi tells me is the truth 
Why did the choir of angels sing for joy ? 
Heaven must be compassed in a narrow space, 
And offer more than room enough for all 
That pass its portals ; but the underworld, 
The godless realm, the place where demons forge 
Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, 
Must swarm with ghosts that for a little while 
Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs 
Of all the dulness of their stolid sires, 
And all the erring instincts of their tribe. 
Nature's own teaching, rudiments of " sin," 
Fell headlong in the snare that could not fail 
To trap the wretched creatures shaped of clay 
And cursed with sense enough to lose their souls ! 



306 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLK 

Brother, thy heart is troubled at my word ; 
Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. 
He will not blame me, He who sends not peace, 
But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain 
At Error's gilded crest, where in the van 
Of earth's great army, mingling with the best 
And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud 
The battle-cries that yesterday have led 
The host of Truth to victory, but to-day 
Are watchwords of the laggard and the slave, 
He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has made 
This world a strife of atoms and of spheres ; 
With every breath I sigh myself away 
And take my tribute from the wandering wind 
To fan the flame of life's consuming fire ; 
So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn, 
And burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, 
Where all the harvest long ago was reaped 
And safely garnered in the ancient barns. 
But still the gleaners, groping for their food, 
Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw, 
While the young reapers flash their glittering steel 
Where later suns have ripened nobler grain ! 



We listened to these lines in silence. They were 
evidently written honestly, and with feeling, and no 
doubt meant to be reverential. I thought, however, 
the Lady looked rather serious as he finished reading. 
The Young Girl's cheeks were flushed, but she was 
not in the mood for criticism. 

As we came away the Master said to me — The 
stubble-fields are mighty slow to take fire. These 



THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 307 

young fellows catch up with the world's ideas one 
after another, — they have been tamed a long while, 
but they find them running loose in their minds, and 
think they are ferm natures. They remind me of 
young sportsmen who fire at the first feathers they see, 
and bring down a barn-yard fowl. But the chicken 
may be worth bagging for all that, he said, good- 
humoredly. 



X. 



Caveat Lector. Let the reader look out for him- 
self. The Old Master, whose words I have so fi'e- 
quently quoted and shall quote more of, is a dogmatist 
who lays down the law, ex cathedra, from the chair 
of his own personality. I do not deny that he 
has the ambition of knowing something about a 
greater number of subjects than any one man ought 
to meddle with, except in a very humble and modest 
way. And that is not his way. There was no 
doubt something of humorous bravado in his saying 
that the actual " order of things " did not offer a 
field sufficiently ample for his intelligence. But 
if I found fault with him, which would be easy 
enough, I should say that he holds and expresses 
definite opinions about matters that he could afford 
to leave open questions, or ask the judgment of others 



308 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

about. But I do not want to find fault with him. 
If he does not settle all the points he speaks of so 
authoritatively, he sets me thinking about them, and I 
like a man as a companion who is not afraid of a half- 
truth. I know he says some things peremptorily that 
he may inwardly debate with himself. There are two 
ways of dealing with assertions of this kind. One 
may attack them on the false side and perhaps gain a 
conversational victory. But I like better to take them 
up on the true side and see how much can be made 
of that aspect of the dogmatic assertion. It is the 
only comfortable way of dealing with persons like the 
Old Master. 

There have been three famous talkers in Great 
Britain, either of whom would illustrate what I say 
about dogmatists well enough for my purpose. You 
cannot doubt to what three I refer : Samuel the First, 
Samuel the Second, and Thomas, last of the Dynasty. 
(I mean the living Thomas and not Thomas B.) 

I say the last of the Dynasty, for the conversational 
dogmatist on the imperial scale becomes every year 
more and more an impossibility. If he is in intelligent 
company he will be almost sure to find some one who 
knows more about some of the subjects he generalizes 
upon than any wholesale thinker who handles knowl- 
edge by the cargo is like to know. I find myself, at 
certain intervals, in the society of a number of experts 
in science, literature, and art, who cover a pretty wide 
range, taking them all together, of human knowledge. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 309 

I have not the least doubt that if the great Dr. Samuel 
Johnson should come in and sit with this company at 
one of their Saturday dinners, he would be listened to, 
as he always was, with respect and attention. But 
there are subjects upon which the great talker could 
speak magisterially in his time and at his club, upon 
which so wise a man would express himself guardedly 
at the meeting where I have supposed him a guest. 
We have a scientific man or two among us, for in- 
stance, who would be entitled to smile at the good 
Doctor's estimate of their labors, as I give it here : — 

" Of those that spin out life in trifles and die with- 
out a memorial many flatter themselves with high 
opinion of their own importance and imagine that 
they are every day adding some improvement to human 
life." — " Some turn the wheel of electricity, some 
suspend rings to a loadstone, and find that what they 
did yesterday they can do again to-day. Some register 
the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that 
the wind is changeable. 

" There are men yet more profound, who have heard 
that two colorless liquors may produce a color by 
union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot if they 
are mingled ; they mingle them, and produce the effect 
expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again." 

I cannot transcribe this extract without an intense 
inward delight in its wit and a full recognition of its 
thorough half-truthfiilness. Yet if while the great 
moralist is indulging in these vivacities, he can be 



310 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

imagined as receiving a message from Mr. Boswell or 
Mrs. Thrale flashed through the depths of the ocean, 
we can suppose he might be tempted to indulge in 
another oracular utterance, something like this : — 

— A mse man recognizes the convenience of a gen- 
eral statement, but he bows to the authority of a par- 
ticular fact. He who would bound the possibilities 
of human knowledge by the limitations of present 
acquirements would take the dimensions of the infant 
in ordering the habiliments of the adult. It is the 
province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege 
of wisdom to listen. Will the Professor have the 
kindness to inform me by what steps of gradual devel- 
opment the ring and the loadstone, which were but yes- 
terday the toys of children and idlers, have become the 
means of approximating the intelligences of remote 
continents, and wafting emotions unchilled through 
the abysses of the no longer unfathomable deep ? 

— This, you understand. Beloved, is only a conven- 
tional imitation of the Doctor's style of talking. He 
wrote in grand balanced phrases, but his conversation 
was good, lusty, oiF-hand familiar talk. He used very 
often to have it all his own way. If he came back to 
us we must remember that to treat him fairly we must 
suppose him on a level with the knowledge of our own 
time. But that knowledge is more specialized, a great 
deal, than knowledge was in his day. Men cannot 
talk about things they have seen from the outside 
with the same magisterial authority the talking dy- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 311 

nasty pretended to. The sturdy old moralist felt 
grand enough, no doubt, when he said, " He that is 
growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle won- 
ders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle 
about war or peace." Benjamin Franklin was one of 
these idlers who were electrifying bottles, but he also 
found time to engage in the trifling prattle about war 
and peace going on in those times. The talking Doc- 
tor hits him very hard in " Taxation no Tyranny " : 
"Those who wrote the Address (of the American 
Congress in 1775), though they have shown no great 
extent or profundity of mind, are yet probably wiser 
than to believe it : but they have been taught by some 
master of mischief how to put in motion the engine of 
political electricity ; to attract by the sounds of Lib- 
erty and Property, to repel by those of Popery and 
Slavery ; and to give the great stroke by the name of 
Boston^ 

The talking dynasty has always been hard upon us 
Americans. King Samuel II. says : " It is, I believe, 
a fact verified beyond doubt, that some years ago it 
was impossible to obtain a copy of the Newgate Cal- 
endar, as they had all been bought up by the Amer- 
icans, whether to suppress the blazon of their fore- 
fathers or to assist in their genealogical researches I 
could never learn satisfactorily." 

As for King Thomas, the last of the monological 
succession, he made such a piece of work with his 
prophecies and his sarcasms about our little trouble 



312 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

with some of the Southern States, that we came rather 
to pity him for his whims and crotchets than to get 
angry with him for calling us bores and other unamia- 
ble names. 

I do not think we believe things because consider- 
able people say them, on personal authority, that is, 
as intelligent listeners very commonly did a century 
ago. The newspapers have lied that belief out of us. 
Any man who has a pretty gift of talk may hold his 
company a little while when there is nothing better 
stirring. Every now and then a man who may be dull 
enough prevailingly has a passion of talk come over 
him which makes him eloquent and silences the rest. 
I have a great respect for these divine paroxysms, these 
half-inspired moments of influx when they seize one 
whom we had not counted among the luminaries of 
the social sphere. But the man who can give us a 
fresh experience on anything that interests us over- 
rides everybody else. A great peril escaped makes a 
great story-teller of a common person enough. I re- 
member when a certain vessel was wrecked long ago, 
that one of the survivors told the story as well as Defoe 
could have told it. Never a word from him before ; 
never a word from him since. But when it comes to 
talking one's common thoughts, — those that come 
and go as the breath does; those that tread the 
mental areas and corridors with steady, even foot- 
fall, an interminable procession of every hue and garb, 
— there are few, indeed, that can dare to lift the cur- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 313 

tain which hangs before the window in the breast and 
throw open the window, and let us look and listen. 
We are all loyal enough to oui* sovereign when he 
shows himself, but sovereigns are scarce. I never saw 
the absolute homage of listeners but once, that I re- 
member, to a man's common talk, and that was to the 
conversation of an old man, illustrious by his lineage 
and the exalted honors he had won, whose experience 
had lessons for the wisest, and whose eloquence had 
made the boldest tremble. 

All this because I told you to look out for your- 
selves and not take for absolute truth everything the 
Old Master of our table, or anybody else at it sees fit 
to utter. At the same time I do not think that he, or 
any of us whose conversation I think worth reporting, 
says anything for the mere sake of saying it and with- 
out thinking that it holds some truth, even if it is not 
unqualifiedly true. 

I suppose a certain number of my readers wish very 
heartily that the Young Astronomer whose poetical 
speculations I am recording would stop trying by 
searching to find out the Almighty, and sign the 
thirty-nine articles, or the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, at any rate slip his neck into some collar 
or other, and pull quietly in the harness, whether it 
galled him or not. I say, rather, let him have his talk 
out ; if nobody else asks the questions he asks, some 
will be glad to hear them, but if you, the reader, find 

14 



314 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the same questions in your own mind, you need not be 
afraid to see how they shape themselves in another's 
intelligence. Do you recognize the fact that we are 
living in a new time ? Knowledge — it excites preju- 
dices to call it science — is advancing as irresistibly, 
as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in 
upon the shore. The courtiers of King Canute (I am 
not afraid of the old comparison), represented by the 
adherents of the traditional beliefs of the period, move 
his chair back an inch at a time, but not until his feet 
are pretty damp, not to say wet. The rock on which he 
sat securely awhile ago is completely under water. 
And now people are walking up and down the beach 
and judging for themselves how far inland the chair 
of King Canute is like to be moved while they and 
their children are looking on, at the rate in which it is 
edging backward. And it is quite too late to go into 
hysterics about it. 

The shore, solid, substantial, a great deal more than 
eighteen hundred years old, is natural humanity. The 
beach which the ocean of knowledge — you may call it 
science if you like — is flowing over, is theological 
humanity. Somewhere between the Sermon on the 
Mount and the teachings of Saint Augustine sin was 
made a transferable chattel. (I leave the interval 
wide for others to make narrow.) 

The doctrine of heritable guilt, with its mechanical 
consequences, has done for our moral nature what the 
doctrine of demoniac possession has done in barbarous 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 315 

times and still does among barbarous tribes for disease. 
Out of that black cloud came the lightning which struck 
the compass of humanity. Conscience, which from the 
da^vn of moral being had pointed to the poles of right 
and wrong only as the great current of will flowed 
through the soul, was demagnetized, paralyzed, and 
knew henceforth no fixed meridian, but stayed where 
the priest or the council placed it. There is nothing 
to be done but to polarize the needle over again. And 
for this purpose we must study the lines of direction 
of all the forces which traverse our human nature. 

We must study man as we have studied stars and 
rocks. We need not go, we are told, to our sacred 
books for astronomy or geology or other scientific 
knowledge. Do not stop there ! Pull Canute's chair 
back fifty rods at once, and do not wait until he is wet 
to the knees ! Say now, bravely, as you will sooner 
or later have to say, that we need not go to any an- 
cient records for our anthropology. Do we not all 
hope, at least, that the doctrine of man's being a 
blighted abortion, a miserable disappointment to his 
Creator, and hostile and hateful to him from his birth, 
may give way to the belief that he is the latest terres- 
trial manifestation of an ever upward-striving move- 
ment of divine power ? If there lives a man who does 
not want to disbelieve the popular notions about the 
condition and destiny of the bulk of his race, I should 
like to have him look me in the face and tell me so. 

I am not writing for the basement story or the nurs- 



316 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ery, and I do not pretend to be, but I say nothing in 
these pages which would not be said without fear of 
offence in any intelligent circle, such as clergymen of 
the higher castes are in the habit of frequenting. 
There are teachers in type for our grandmothers and 
our grandchildren who vaccinate the two childhoods 
with wholesome doctrine, transmitted harmlessly from 
one infant to another. But we three men at our table 
have taken the disease of thinking in the natural way. 
It is an epidemic in these times, and those who are 
afraid of it must shut themselves up close or they will 
catch it. 

I hope none of us are wanting in reverence. One 
at least of us is a regular church-goer, and believes a 
man may be devout and yet very free in the expression 
of his opinions on the gravest subjects. There may 
be some good people who think that our young friend 
who puts his thoughts in verse is going sounding over 
perilous depths, and are frightened every time he 
throws the lead. There is nothing to be frightened 
at. This is a manly world we live in. Our reverence 
is good for nothing if it does not begin with self-re- 
spect. Occidental manhood springs from that as its 
basis ; Oriental manhood finds the greatest satisfaction 
in self-abasement. There is no use in trying to graft 
the tropical palm upon the Northern pine. The same 
divine forces underlie the growth of both, but leaf and 
flower and fruit must follow the law of race, of soil, 
of climate. Whether the questions which assail my 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 317 

young friend have risen in my reader's mind or not, he 
knows perfectly well that nobody can keep such ques- 
tions from springing up in every yomig mind of any 
force or honesty. As for the excellent little wretches 
who grow up in what they are taught, with never a 
scruple or a query, Protestant or Catholic, Jew or 
Mormon, Mahometan or Buddhist, they signify noth- 
ing in the intellectual life of the race. If the world 
had been wholly peopled with such half-vitalized men- 
tal negatives, there never would have been a creed like 
that of Christendom. 

I entirely agree with the spirit of the verses I have 
looked over, in this point at least, that a true man's 
allegiance is given to that which is highest in his own 
nature. He reverences truth, he loves kindness, he 
respects justice. The two first qualities he under- 
stands well enough. But the last, justice, at least as 
between the Infinite and the finite, has been so utterly 
dehumanized, disintegrated, decomposed, and diabo- 
lized in passing through the minds of the half-civilized 
banditti who have peopled and unpeopled the world 
for some scores of generations, that it has become a 
mere algebraic x^ and has no fixed value whatever as 
a human conception. 

As for "power, we are outgrowing all superstition 
about that. We have not the slightest respect for it 
as such, and it is just as well to remember this in all 
our spiritual adjustments. We fear power when we 
cannot master it ; but just as far as we can master it, 



318 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

we make a slave and a beast of burden of it without 
hesitation. We cannot change the ebb and flow of the 
tides, or the course of the seasons, but we come as 
near it as we can. We dam out the ocean, we make 
roses blow in winter and water freeze in summer. We 
have no more reverence for the sun than we have for 
a fish-tail gas-burner ; we stare into his face with tele- 
scopes as at a ballet-dancer with opera-glasses; we 
pick his rays to pieces with prisms as if they were so 
many skeins of colored yarn ; we tell him we do not 
want his company and shut him out like a troublesome 
vagrant. The gods of the old heathen are the ser- 
vants of to-day. Neptune, Vulcan, JEolus, and the 
bearer of the thunderbolt himself have stepped down 
from their pedestals and put on our livery. We can- 
not always master them, neither can we always master 
our servant, the horse, but we have put a bridle on 
the wildest natural agencies. The mob of elemental 
forces is as noisy and turbulent as ever, but the stand- 
ing army of civilization keeps it well under, except for 
an occasional outbreak. 

When I read the Lady's letter printed some time 
since, I could not help honoring the feeling which 
prompted her in writing it. But while I respect the 
innocent incapacity of tender age and the limitations 
of the comparatively uninstructed classes, it is quite 
out of the question to act as if matters of common 
intelligence and universal interest were the private 
property of a secret society, only to be meddled with 
by those who know the mr> and the password. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 319 

We must get over the habit of transferring the limi- 
tations of the nervous temperament and of hectic con- 
stitutions to the great Source of all the mighty forces 
of nature, animate and inanimate. We may confi- 
dently trust that we have over us a Being thoroughly 
robust and grandly magnanimous, in distinction from 
the Infinite Invalid bred in the studies of sickly mono- 
maniacs, who corresponds to a very common human 
type, but makes us blush for him when we contrast 
him with a truly noble man, such as most of us have 
had the privilege of knowing both in public and in 
private life. 

I was not a little pleased to find that the Lady, in 
spite of her letter, sat through the young man's read- 
ing of portions of his poem with a good deal of com- 
placency. I think I can guess what is in her mind. 
She believes, as so many women do, in that great rem- 
edy for discontent, and doubts about humanity, and 
questionings of Providence, and all sorts of youthfal 
vagaries, — I mean the love-cure. And she thinks, 
not without some reason, that these astronomical les- 
sons, and these readings of poetry and daily proximity 
at the table, and the need of two young hearts that 
have been long feeling lonely, and youth and nature 
and " aU impulses of soul and sense," as Coleridge has 
it, will bring these two young people into closer rela- 
tions than they perhaps have yet thought of; and so 
that sweet lesson of loving the neighbor whom he has 
seen may lead him into deeper and more trusting com- 



320 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

munion with the Friend and Father whom he has not 
seen. 

The Young Girl evidently did not intend that her 
accomplice should be a loser by the summary act of 
the Member of the Haouse. I took occasion to ask 
That Boy what had become of all the popguns. He 
gave me to understand that popguns were played out, 
but that he had got a squirt and a whip, and consid- 
ered himself better off than before. 

This great world is full of mysteries. I can compre- 
hend the pleasure to be got out of the hydraulic 
engine; but what can be the fascination of a wMpj 
when one has nothing to flagellate but the calves of 
his own legs, I could never understand. Yet a small 
riding-whip is the most popular article with the mis- 
cellaneous New-Englander at all great gatherings, — 
cattle-shows and Fourth-of-July celebrations. If De- 
mocritus and Heraclitus could walk arm in arm 
through one of these crowds, the first would be in a 
broad laugh to see the multitude of young persons 
who were rejoicing in the possession of one of these 
useless and worthless little commodities ; happy him- 
self to see how easily others could purchase happiness. 
But the second would weep bitter tears to think what 
a rayless and barren life that must be which could ex- 
tract enjoyment from the miserable flimsy wand that 
has such magic attraction for sauntering youths and 
simpering maidens. What a dynamometer of happi- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 321 

ness are these paltry toys, and what a rudimentary 
vertebrate must be the freckled adolescent whose 
yearning for the infinite can be stayed even for a single 
hour by so trifling a boon from the venal hands of the 
finite ! 

Pardon these polysyllabic reflections, Beloved, but I 
never contemplate these dear fellow-creatures of ours 
without a delicious sense of superiority to them and 
to all arrested embryos of intelligence, in which I 
have no doubt you heartily sympathize with me. It 
is not merely when I look at the vacuous countenances 
of the mastigophori, the whip-holders, that I enjoy 
this luxury (though I would not miss that holiday 
spectacle for a pretty sum of money, and advise you 
by all means to make sure of it next Fourth of July, 
if you missed it this), but I get the same pleasure from 
many similar manifestations. 

I delight in Regalia, so called, of the kind not worn 
by kings, nor obtaining their diamonds from the mines 
of Golconda. I have a passion for those resplendent 
titles which are not conferred by a sovereign and 
would not be the open sesame to the courts of royalty, 
yet which are as opulent in impressive adjectives as 
any Knight of the Garter's list of dignities. When I 
have recognized in the every-day name of His Very 
Worthy High Eminence of some cabalistic association, 
the inconspicuous individual whose trifling indebted- 
ness to me for value received remains in a quiescent 
state and is likely long to continue so, I confess to 

14* u 



322 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

having experienced a thrill of pleasure. I have smiled 
to think how grand his magnificent titular appendages 
sounded in his own ears and what a feeble tintinnabu- 
lation they made in mine. The crimson sash, the 
broad diagonal belt of the mounted marshal of a great 
procession, so cheap in themselves, yet so entirely 
satisfactory to the wearer, tickle my heart's root. 

Perhaps I should have enjoyed all these weaknesses 
of my infantile fellow-creatures without an after- 
thought^ except that on a certain literary anniversary 
when I tie the narrow blue and pink ribbons in my 
button-hole and show my decorated bosom to the 
admiring public, I am conscious of a certain sense 
of distinction and superiority in virtue of that trifling 
addition to my personal adornments which reminds 
me that I too have some embryonic fibres in my tol- 
erably well-matured organism. 

I hope I have not hurt your feelings, if you happen 
to be a High and Mighty Grand Functionary in any 
illustrious Fraternity. When I tell you that a bit of 
ribbon in my button-hole sets my vanity prancing, I 
think you cannot be grievously offended that I smile 
at the resonant titles which make you something more 
than human in your own eyes. I would not for the 
world be mistaken for one of those literary roughs 
whose brass knuckles leave their mark on the fore- 
heads of so many inoff'ensive people. 

There is a human sub-species characterized by the 
coarseness of its fibre and the acrid nature of its in- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 323 

tellectual secretions. It is to a certain extent pene- 
trative, as all creatures are which are provided with 
stings. It has an instinct which guides it to the 
vulnerable parts of the victim on which it fastens. 
These two qualities give it a certain degree of power 
which is not to be despised. It might perhaps be less 
mischievous, but for the fact that the wound where 
it leaves its poison opens the fountain from which 
it draws its nourishment. 

Beings of this kind can be useful if they will only 
find their appropriate sphere, which is not literature, 
but that circle of rough-and-tumble political life where 
the fine-fibred men are at a discount, where epithets 
find their subjects poison-proof, and the sting which 
would be fatal to a literary dSbutant only wakes the 
eloquence of the pachydermatous ward-room politician 
to a fiercer shriek of declamation. 

The Master got talking the other day about the 
difference between races and families. I am reminded 
of what he said by what I have just been saying 
myself about coarse-fibred and fine-fibred people. 

— We talk about a Yankee, a New-Englander, — 
he said, — as if aU of 'em were just the same kind of 
animal. " There is knowledge and knowledge," said 
John Bunyan. There are Yankees and Yankees. Do 
you know two native trees called pitch pine and white 
pine respectively ? Of course you know 'em. Well, 
there are pitch-pine Yankees and white-pine Yankees. 
We don't talk about the inherited differences of men 



324 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

quite as freely, perhaps, as they do in the Old World, 
but republicanism does n't alter the laws of physiology. 
We have a native aristocracy, a superior race, just as 
plainly marked by nature as of a higher and finer grade 
than the common run of people as the white pine is 
marked in its form, its stature, its bark, its delicate 
foliage, as belonging to the nobility of the forest ; and 
the pitch pine, stubbed, rough, coarse-haired, as of the 
plebeian order. Only the strange thing is to see in 
what a capricious way our natural nobility is dis- 
tributed. The last bom nobleman I have seen, I saw 
this morning ; he was pulling a rope that was fastened 
to a Maine schooner loaded with lumber. I should 
say he was about twenty years old, as fine a figure of 
a young man as you would ask to see, and with a 
regular Greek outline of countenance, waving hair, 
that fell as if a sculptor had massed it to copy, and 
a complexion as rich as a red sunset. I have a notion 
that the State of Maine breeds the natural nobility in 
a larger proportion than some other States, but they 
spring up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. The 
young fellow I saw this morning had on an old flannel 
shirt and a pair of pantaloons that meant hard work, 
and a cheap cloth cap pushed back on his head so as 
to let the large waves of hair straggle out over his fore- 
head ; he was tugging at his rope with the other 
sailors, but upon my word I don't think I have seen a 
young English nobleman of all those whom I have 
looked upon that answered to the notion of " blood " 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 325 

SO well ds this young fellow did. I suppose if I made 
such a levelling confession as this in public, people 
would think I was looking towards being the labor- 
reform candidate for President. But I should go on 
and spoil my prospects by saying that I don't think 
the white-pine Yankee is the more generally prevailing 
growth, but rather the pitch-pine Yankee. 

— The Member of the Haouse seemed to have been 
getting a dim idea that all this was not exactly flatter^ 
ing to the huckleberry districts. His features betrayed 
the growth of this suspicion so clearly that the Master 
replied to his look as if it had been a remark. [I need 
hardly say that this particular member of the General 
Court was a pitch-pine Yankee of the most thoroughly 
characterized aspect and flavor.] 

— Yes, Sir, — the Master continued, — Sir being 
anybody that listened, — there is neither flattery nor 
off'ence in the views which a physiological observer 
takes of the forms of life around him. It won't do to 
draw individual portraits, but the differences of natural 
groups of human beings are as proper subjects of re- 
mark as those of different breeds of horses, and if 
horses were Houyhnhnms I don't think they would 
quarrel with us because we made a distinction between 
a " Morgan " and a " Messenger." The truth is. Sir, 
the lean sandy soil and the droughts and the long 
winters and the east-winds and the cold storms, and 
all sorts of unknown local influences that we can't 
make out quite so plainly as these, have a tendency to 



326 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

roughen tlie human organization and make it coarse, 
something as it is with the tree I mentioned. Some 
spots and some strains of blood fight against these 
influences, but if I should say right out what I think, 
it would be that the finest human fruit, on the whole, 
and especially the finest women that we get in New 
England are raised under glass. 

— Good gracious ! — - exclaimed the Landlady, — 
under glass ! — 

— Give me cowcumbers raised in the open air, — 
said the Capitalist, who was a little hard of hearing. 

— Perhaps, — I remarked, — it might be as well if 
you would explain this last expression of yours. 
Raising human beings under glass I take to be a 
metaphorical rather than a literal statement of your 
meaning. — 

— ISTo, Sir ! — replied the Master, with energy, — I 
mean just what I say. Sir. Under glass, and with a 
south exposure. During the hard season, of course, — 
for in the heats of summer the tenderest hot-house 
plants are not afraid of the open air. Protection is 
what the transplanted Aryan requires in this New 
England climate. Keep him, and especially keep her, 
in a wide street of a well-built city eight months of the 
year ; good solid brick walls behind her, good sheets 
of plate-glass, with the sun shining warm through 
them, in front of her, and you have put her in the 
condition of the pine-apple, from the land of which, 
and not from that of the other kind of pine, her race 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 327 

started on its travels. People don't know what a gain 
there is to health by living in cities, the best parts of 
them of course, for we know too well what the worst 
parts are. In the first place you get rid of the noxious 
emanations which poison so many country localities 
with typhoid fever and dysentery ; not wholly rid of 
them, of course, but to a surprising degree. Let me 
tell you a doctor's story. I was visiting a Western city 
a good many years ago ; it was in the autumn, the 
time when all sorts of malarious diseases are about. 
The doctor I was speaking of took me to see the cem- 
etery just outside the town, — I don't know how much 
he had done to fill it, for he did n't tell me, but I '11 
tell you what he did say. 

" Look round," said the doctor. " There is n't a 
house in all the ten-mile circuit of country you can see 
over, where there is n't one person, at least, shaking 
with fever and ague. And yet you need n't be afraid 
of carrying it away with you, for as long as your home 
is on a paved street you are safe." 

— I think it likely — the Master went on to say — 
that my Mend the doctor put it pretty strongly, but 
there is no doubt at all that while all the country 
round was suffering from intermittent fever, the paved 
part of the city was comparatively exempted. What 
do you do when you build a house on a damp soil, ■ — 
and there are damp soils pretty much everywhere ? 
Why you floor the cellar with cement, don't you ? 
Well, the soil of a city is cemented all over, one may 



328 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

say, with certain qualifications of course. A first-rate 
city house is a regular sanatorium. The only trouble 
is, that the little good-for-nothings that come of utterly 
used-up and worn-out stock, and ought to die, can't 
die, to save their lives. So they grow up to dilute the 
vigor of the race with skim-milk vitality. They would 
have died, like good children, in most average country 
places; but eight months of shelter in a regulated 
temperature, in a well-sunned house, in a duly moist- 
ened air, with good sidewalks to go about on in all 
weather, and four months of the cream of summer and 
the fresh milk of Jersey cows, make the little sham 
organizations — the worm-eaten windfalls, for that 's 
what they look like — hang on to the boughs of life 
like " froze-n-thaws " ; regular struldbrugs they come 
to be, a good many of 'em. 

— The Scarabee's ear was caught by that queer 
word of Swift's, and he asked very innocently what 
kind of bugs he was speaking of, whereupon That 
Boy shouted out, Straddlebugs ! to his own immense 
amusement and the great bewilderment of the Scara- 
bee, who only saw that there was one of those unin- 
telligible breaks in the conversation which made other 
people laugh, and drew back his antennae as usual, 
perplexed, but not amused. 

I do not believe the Master had said all he was 
going to say on this subject, and of course all these 
statements of his are more or less one-sided. But 
that some invalids do much better in cities than in the 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 329 

country is indisputable^ and that the frightful dysen. 
teries and fevers which have raged like pestilences in 
many of our country towns are almost unknown in the 
better built sections of some of our large cities is get- 
ting to be more generally understood since our well- 
to-do people have annually emigrated in such numbers 
from the cemented surface of the city to the steaming 
soil of some of the dangerous rural districts. If one 
should contrast the healthiest country residences with 
the worst city ones the result would be all the other 
way, of course, so that there are two sides to the 
question, which we must let the doctors pound in 
their great mortar, infuse and strain, hoping that they 
vnll present us with the clear solution when they have 
got through these processes. One of our chief wants 
is a complete sanitary map of every State in the Union. 

The balance of our table, as the reader has no doubt 
observed, has been deranged by the v^thdrawal of the 
Man of Letters, so called, and only the side of the 
deficiency changed by the removal of the Young 
Astronomer into our neighborhood. The fact that 
there was a vacant chair on the side opposite us had 
by no means escaped the notice of That Boy. He 
had taken advantage of his opportunity and invited in 
a schoolmate whom he evidently looked upon as a 
great personage. This boy or youth was a good deal 
older than himself and stood to him apparently in the 
light of a patron and instructor in the ways of life. 



330 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

A very jaunty, knowing young gentleman he was, 
good-looking, smartly dressed, smooth-cheeked as yet, 
curly-haired, with a roguish eye, a sagacious wink, a 
ready tongue, as I soon found out ; and as I learned 
could catch a ball on the fly with any boy of his age ; 
not quarrelsome, but, if he had to strike, hit from the 
shoulder; the pride of his father (who was a man of 
property and a civic dignitary), and answering to the 
name of Johnny. 

I was a little surprised at the liberty That Boy had 
taken in introducing an extra peptic element at our 
table, reflecting as I did that a certain number of 
avoirdupois ounces of nutriment which the visitor 
would dispose of corresponded to a very appreciable 
pecuniary amount, so that he was levying a contribu- 
tion upon our Landlady which she might be inclined 
to complain of. For the Caput mortuum (or dead- 
head, in vulgar phrase) is apt to be furnished with a 
Venter vivus^ or, as we may say, a lively appetite. 
But the Landlady welcomed the new-comer very 
heartily. 

— Why ! how — do — you — do — Johnny ? ! with 
the notes of interrogation and of admiration both to- 
gether, as here represented. 

Johnny signified that he was doing about as well as 
could be expected under the circumstances, having 
just had a little difference with a young person whom 
he spoke of as " Pewter-jaw " (I suppose he had worn 
a dentist's tooth-straightening contrivance during his 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 331 

second dentition), which youth he had finished off, as 
he said, in good shape, but at the expense of a slight 

— epistaxis, we will translate his vernacular expres- 
sion. 

— The three ladies all looked sympathetic, but there 
did not seem to be any great occasion for it, as the 
boy had come all right, and seemed to be in the 
best of spirits. 

— And how is your father and your mother ? — 
asked the Landlady. 

— O, the Governor and the Head Centre? A 1, 
both of 'em. Prime order for shipping, — warranted 
to stand any climate. The Governor says he weighs a 
hunderd and seventy-five pounds. Got a chin-tuft 
just like Ed'in Forest. D'd y' ever see Ed'in Forest 
play Metamora ? Bully, I tell you ! My old gentle- 
man means to be Mayor or Governor or President or 
something or other before he goes off the handle, 
you 'd better b'lieve. He 's smart, — and I 've heard 
folks say I take after him. — 

— Somehow or other I felt as if I had seen this boy 
before, or known something about him. Where did 
he get those expressions ^^ A 1 " and '' prime " and so 
on ? They must have come fi*om somebody who has 
been in the retail dry-goods business, or something of 
that nature. I have certain vague reminiscences that 
carry me back to the early times of this boarding- 
house. — Johnny. — Landlady knows his father well. 

— Boarded with her, no doubt. — There was some- 



332 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

body by the name of John, I remember perfectly well, 
lived with her. I remember both my friend- men- 
tioned him, one of them very often. I wonder if thi? 
boy is n't a son of his ! I asked the Landlady after 
breakfast whether this was not, as I had suspected, 
the son of that former boarder. 

— To be sure he is, — she answered, — and jest 
such a good-natur'd sort of creatur' as his father was. 
I always liked John, as we used to call his father. 
He did love fun, but he was a good soul, and stood 
by me when I was in trouble, always. He vf ent into 
business on his own account after a while, and got 
merried, and settled down into a family man. They 
tell me he is an amazing smart business man, — grown 
wealthy, and his wife's father left her money. But I 
can't help calling him John, — law, we never thought 
of calling him anything else, and he always laughs and 
says, '^ That 's right." This is his oldest son, and 
everybody calls him Johnny. That Boy of ours goes 
to the same school with his boy, and thinks there never 
was anybody like him, — you see there was a boy 
undertook to impose on our boy, and Johnny gave the 
other boy a good licking, and ever since that he is 
always wanting to have Johnny round with him and 
bring him here with him, — and when those two boys 
get together, there never was boys that was so chock 
fall of fun and sometimes mischief, but not very bad 
mischief, as those two boys be. But I like to have 
him come once in a while when there is room at the 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 333 

table, as there is now, for it puts me in mind of the 
old times, when my old boarders was all round me 
that I used to think so much of, — not that my board- 
ers that I have now a'nt very nice people, but I did 
think a dreadful sight of the gentleman that made that 
first book ; it helped me on in the world more than ever 
he knew of, — for it was as good as one of them 
Brandreth's pills advertisements, and did n't cost me a 
cent, and that young lady he raerried too, she was 
nothing but a poor young schoolma'am when she come 
to my house, and now — and she deserved it all too, 
for she was always just the same, rich or poor, and she 
is n't a bit prouder now she wears a camel's-hair shawl, 
than she was when I used to lend her a woollen one 
to keep her poor dear little shoulders warm when she 
had to go out and it was storming, — and then there 
was that old gentleman, — I can't speak about him, 
for I never knew how good he was till his will was 

opened, and then it was too late to thank him 

I respected the feeling which caused the interval of 
silence, and foimd my own eyes moistened as I remem- 
bered how long it was since that Mend of ours was 
sitting in the chair where I now sit, and what a tidal 
wave of change has swept over the world and more 
especially over this great land of ours, since he opened 
his lips and found so many kind listeners. 

The Young Astronomer has read us another extract 
from his manuscript. I ran my eye over it, and so far 



334 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

as I have noticed it is correct enough in its versifica- 
tion. I suppose we are getting gradually over our 
hemispherical provincialism, which allowed a set of 
monks to pull their hoods over our eyes and tell us 
there was no meaning in any religious symbolism but 
our own. If I am mistaken about this advance I am 
very glad to print the young man's somewhat out- 
spoken lines to help us in that direction. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DmFTS. 

VI. 

The time is racked with birth-pangs ; every hour 
Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth new-born 
Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, 
The terror of the household and its shame, 
A monster coiling in its nurse's lap* 
That some would strangle, some would only starve ; 
But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, 
And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts, 
Comes slowly to its stature and its form. 
Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales. 
Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, 
And moves transfigured into angel guise, 
Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth. 
And folded in the same encircling arms 
That cast it like a serpent from their hold I 

If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace. 
Have the fine words the marble-workers learn 
To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 335 

And earn a fair obituary, dressed 

In all the many-colored robes of praise, 

Be deafer than the adder to the cry 

Of that same foundling truth, until it grows 

To seemly favor, and at length has won 

The smiles of hard-mouthed men and light-lipped dames; 

Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's breast. 

Fold it in silk and give it food from gold ; 

So shalt thou share its glory when at last 

It drops its mortal vesture, and revealed 

In all the splendor of its heavenly form, 

Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings ! 

Alas ! how much that seemed immortal truth 
That heroes fought for, martyrs died to save. 
Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old 
And limping in its march, its wings unplumed. 
Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream ! 

Here in this painted casket, just unsealed, 
Lies what was once a breathing shape like thine, 
Once loved as thou art loved ; there beamed the eyes 
That looked on Memphis in its hour of pride, 
That saw the walls of hundred-gated Thebes, 
And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. 
See how they toiled that all-consuming time 
Might leave the frame immortal in its tomb ; 
Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gums 
That still diffuse their sweetness through the air, 
And wound and wound with patient fold on fold 
The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn ! 
Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain 
Of the sad mourner's tear. 

But what is this V 
The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast 



336 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 

Of the blind heathen ! Snatch the curious prize, 

Give it a place among thy treasured spoils 

Fossil and relic, — corals, encrinites. 

The fly in amber and the fish in stone. 

The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold. 

Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring, — 

Place for the Memphian beetle with thine hoard ! 

Ah ! longer than thj creed has blest the world 
This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's breast, 
Was to the heart of Mizraim as divine, 
As holy, as the sy mbol that we lay 
On the still bosom of our white-robed dead, 
And raise above their dust that all may know 
Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving friends. 
With tears of trembling faith and choking sobs, 
And prayers to those who judge of mortal deeds. 
Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's fold 
That Isis and Osiris, friends of man, 
Might know their own and claim the ransomed soul. 

An idol ? Man was born to worship such 1 
An idol is an image of his thought ; 
Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone. 
And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold, 
Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome. 
Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire. 
Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, 
Or pays his priest to make it day by day ; 
For sense must have its god as well as soul ; 
A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines, 
And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own, 
The sign we worship as did they of old 
When Isis and Osiris ruled the world. 



THE rOET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 337 

Let us be true to our most subtle selves, 
We long to have our idols like tbe rest. 
Think ! when the men of Israel had their God 
Encamped among them, talking with their chief, 
Leading them in the pillar of the cloud 
And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, 
They still must have an image ; still they longed 
For somewhat of substantial, solid form 
Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix 
Their wandering thoughts, and gain a stronger hold 
For their uncertain faith, not yet assured 
If those same meteors of the day and night 
Were not mere exhalations of the soil. 

Are we less earthly than the chosen race ? 
Are we more neighbors of the living God 
Than they who gathered manna every morn, 
Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice 
Of him who met the Highest in the mount, 
And brought them tables, graven with His hand ? 
Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold, 
That star-browed Apis might be god again ; 
Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings 
That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown 
Of sunburnt cheeks, — what more could woman do 
To show her pious zeal ? They went astray, 
But nature led them as it leads us all. 

We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf 
And scoif at Egypt's sacred scarabee, 
Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss. 
And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us 
To be our dear companions in the dust. 
Such magic works an image in our souls ! 

Man is an embryo ; see at twenty years 

15 V 



338 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

His bones, the columns that uphold his frame 

Not yet cemented, shaft and capital. 

Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. 

At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown ? 

Nay, still a child, and as the httle maids 

Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries 

To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, 

And change its raiment when the world cries shame ! 

We smile to see our little ones at play 
So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care 
Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes ; — 
Does He not smile who sees us with the toys 
We call by sacred names, and idly feign 
To be what we have called them ? He is still 
The Father of this helpless nursery-brood. 
Whose second childhood joins so close its first, 
That in the crowding, hurrying years between 
We scarce have trained our senses to their task 
Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes, 
And with our hollowed palm we help our ear. 
And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names. 
And then begin to tell our stories o'er. 
And see — not hear — the whispering lips that say, 

" You know ? Your father knew him. — This is he, 

Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,'* — 
And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad 
The simple life we share with weed and worm, 
Go to our cradles, naked as we came. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 339 



XL 



I SUPPOSE there would have been even more re- 
marks upon the growing intimacy of the Young 
Astronomer and his pupil, if the curiosity of the 
boarders had not in the mean time been so much ex- 
cited at the apparently close relation which had sprung 
up between the Register of Deeds and the Lady. It 
was really hard to tell what to make of it. The Regis- 
ter appeared at the table in a new coat. Suspicious. 
The Lady was evidently deeply interested in him, if 
we could judge by the frequency and the length of 
their interviews. On at least one occasion he has 
brought a lawyer with him, which naturally suggested 
the idea that there were some property arrangements 
to be attended to, in case, as seems probable against 
all reasons to the contrary, these two estimable per- 
sons, so utterly unfitted, as one would say, to each 
other, contemplated an alliance. It is no pleasure to 
me to record an arrangement of this kind. I frankly 
confess I do not know what to make of it. With her 
tastes and breeding, it is the last thing that I should 
have thought of, — her uniting herself with this most 
commonplace and mechanical person, who cannot even 
offer her the elegances and luxuries to which she 
might seem entitled on changing her condition. 

While I was thus interested and puzzled I received 
an unexpected visit from our Landlady. She was evi- 



340 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

dently excited, and by some event which was of a 
happy nature, for her countenance was beaming and 
she seemed impatient to communicate what she had to 
tell. Impatient or not, she must wait a moment, 
while I say a word about her. Our Landlady is as 
good a creature as ever lived. She is a little negli- 
gent of grammar at times, and will get a wrong word 
now and then ; she is garrulous, circumstantial, asso- 
ciates facts by their accidental cohesion rather than by 
their vital affinities, is given to choking and tears on 
slight occasions, but she has a warm heart, and feels 
to her boarders as if they were her blood-relations. 

She began her conversation abruptly. — I expect 
I 'm a going to lose one of my boarders, — she said. 

— You don't seem very unhappy about it, madam, 
— I answered. — We all took it easily when the per- 
son who sat on our side of the table quitted us in such 
a hurry, but I do not think there is anybody left that 
either you or the boarders want to get rid of — unless 
it is myself, — I added modestly. 

— You ! said the Landlady — you ! No indeed. 
When I have a quiet boarder that 's a small eater, I 
don't want to lose him. You don't make trouble, you 
don't find fault with your vit — [Dr. Benjamin had 
schooled his parent on this point and she altered the 
word] with your food, and you know when you 've had 
enough. 

— I really felt proud of this eulogy, which embraces 
the most desirable excellences of a human being in the 
capacity of boarder. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 341 

The Landlady began again. — I 'm going to lose — 
at least, I suppose I shall — one of the best boarders 
I ever had, — that Lady that 's been with me so long. 

— I thought there was something going on between 
her and the Register, — I said. 

— Something ! I should think there was ! About 
three months ago he began making her acquaintance. 
I thought there was something particular. I did n't 
quite like to watch 'em very close, but I could n't help 
overhearing some of the things he said to her, for, you 
see, he used to follow her up into the parlor, — they 
talked pretty low, but I could catch a word now and 
then. I heard him say something to her one day 
about "bettering her condition," and she seemed to 
be thinking very hard about it, and turning of it over 
in her mind, and I said to myself. She does n't want 
to take up with him, but she feels dreadful poor, and 
perhaps he has been saving and has got money in the 
bank, and she does n't want to throw away a chance 
of bettering herself without thinking it over. But 
dear me, — says I to myself, — to think of her walk- 
ing up the broad aisle into meeting alongside of such 
a homely, rusty-looking creatur' as that ! But there 's 
no telling what folks will do when poverty has got 
hold of 'em. 

— Well, so I thought she was waiting to make up 
her mind, and he was hanging on in hopes she 'd come 
round at last, as women do half the time, for they 
don't know their own minds and the wind blows both 



342 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ways at once with 'em as the smoke blows out of the 
tall chimlies, — east out of this one and west out of 
that, — so it 's no use looking at 'em to know what 
the weather is. 

— But yesterday she comes up to me after break- 
fast, and asks me to go up with her into her little 
room. Now, says I to myself, I shall hear all about 
it. I saw she looked as if she 'd got some of her 
trouble off her mind, and I guessed that it was set- 
tled, and so, says I to myself, I must wish her joy and 
hope it 's all for the best, whatever I think about it. 

— Well, she asked me to set down, and then she 
begun. She said that she was expecting to have a 
change in her condition of life, and had asked me up 
so that I might have the first news of it. I am sure 
— says I — I wish you both joy. Merriage is a 
blessed thing when folks is well sorted, and it is an 
honorable thing, and the first meracle was at the mer- 
riage in Canaan. It brings a great sight of happiness 
vrith it, as I Ve had a chance of knowing, for my — 
hus — 

The Landlady showed her usual tendency to 
"break" from the conversational pace just at this 
point, but managed to rein in the rebellious dia^- 
phragm, and resumed her narrative. 

— Merriage ! — says she, — pray who has said any- 
thing about merriage? — 

— I beg your pardon, ma'am, — says I, — I thought 
you had spoke of changing your condition, and I — 
She looked so I stopped right short. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 343 

— Don't say another word, says she, but jest listen 
to what I am going to tell you. 

— jVly friend, says she, that you have seen with me 
so often lately, was hunting among his old Record 
books, when all at once he come across an old deed 
that was made by somebody that had my family name. 
He took it into his head to read it over, and he found 
there was some kind of a condition that if it was n't 
kept, the property would all go back to them that was 
the heirs of the one that gave the deed, and that he 
found out was me. Something or other put it into his 
head, says she, that the company that owned the prop- 
erty — it was ever so rich a company and owned land 
all round everywhere — had n't kept to the conditions. 
So he went to work, says she, and hunted through his 
books and he inquired all round, and he found out 
pretty much all about it, and at last he come to me — 
it 's my boarder, you know, that says all this — and 
says he. Ma'am, says he, if you have any kind of fancy 
for being a rich woman you 've only got to say so. I 
didn't know what he meant, and I began to think, 
says she, he must be crazy. But he explained it all to 
me, how I 'd nothing to do but go to court and I could 
get a sight of property back. Well, so she went on 
telling me — there was ever so much more that I sup- 
pose was all plain enough, but I don't remember it 
all — only I know my boarder was a good deal worried 
at first at the thought of taking money that other peo- 
ple thought was theirs, and the Register he had to talk 



344 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

to her, and he brought a lawyer and he talked to her, 
and her friends they talked to her, and the upshot of 
it all was that the company agreed to settle the busi- 
ness by paying her, well, I don't know just how much, 
but enough to make her one of the rich folks again. 

I may as well add here that, as I have since learned, 
this is one of the most important cases of releasing 
right of re-entry for condition broken which has been 
settled by arbitration for a considerable period. If I 
am not mistaken the Register of Deeds will get some- 
thing more than a new coat out of this business, for 
the Lady very justly attributes her change of fortunes 
to his sagacity and his activity in following up the hint 
he had come across by mere accident. 

So my supernumerary fellow-boarder, whom I would 
have dispensed with as a cumberer of the table, has 
proved a ministering angel to one of the personages 
whom I most cared for. 

One would have thought that the most scrupulous 
person need not have hesitated in asserting an unques- 
tioned legal and equitable claim simply because it had 
Iain a certain number of years in abeyance. But be- 
fore the Lady could make up her mind to accept her 
good fortune she had been kept awake many nights in 
doubt and inward debate whether she should avail 
herself of her rights. If it had been private property, 
so that another person must be made poor that she 
should become rich, she would have lived and died in 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 345 

want rather than claim her own. I do not think any 
of us would like to turn out the possessor of a fine 
estate enjoyed for two or three generations on the faith 
of unquestioned ownership by making use of some old 
forgotten instrument, which accident had thrown in 
our way. 

But it was all nonsense to indulge in any sentiment 
in a case like this, where it was not only a right, but 
a duty which she owed herself and others in relation 
with her, to accept what Providence, as it appeared, 
had thrust upon her, and when no suffering would be 
occasioned to anybody. Common sense told her not 
to refuse it. So did several of her rich friends, who 
remembered about this time that they had not called 
upon her for a good while, and among them Mrs. 
Midas Goldenrod. 

Never had that lady's carriage stood before the door 
of our boarding-house so long, never had it stopped so 
often, as since the revelation which had come from the 
Registry of Deeds. Mrs. Midas Goldenrod was not a 
bad woman, but she loved and hated in too exclusive 
and fastidious a way to allow us to consider her as rep- 
resenting the highest ideal of womanhood. She hated 
narrow ill-ventilated courts, where there was nothing 
to see if one looked out of the window but old men in 
dressing-gowns and old women in caps ; she hated little 
dark rooms with air-tight stoves in them ; she hated 
rusty bombazine gowns and last year's bonnets ; she 
hated gloves that were not as fresh as new-laid eggs, 

15* 



346 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

and shoes that had grown bulgy and wrinkled in ser- 
vice ; she hated common crockery-ware and teaspoons 
of slight constitution ; she hated second appearances on 
the dinner-table ; she hated coarse napkins and table- 
cloths ; she hated to ride in the horse-cars ; she hated 
to walk except for short distances, when she was tired 
of sitting in her carriage. She loved with sincere and 
undisguised affection a spacious city mansion and a 
charming country villa, with a seaside cottage for a 
couple of months or so ; she loved a perfectly ap- 
pointed household, a cook who was up to all kinds of 
salmis and vol-aii-vents, a French maid, and a stylish- 
looking coachman, and the rest of the people necessary 
to help one live in a decent manner ; she loved pic- 
tures that other people said were first-rate, and which 
had at least cost first-rate prices ; she loved books 
with handsome backs, in showy cases; she loved 
heavy and richly wrought plate ; fine linen and plenty 
of it ; dresses from Paris frequently, and as many as 
could be got in without troubling the custom-house ; 
Russia sables and Venetian point-lace ; diamonds, and 
good big ones ; and, speaking generally, she loved dear 
things in distinction from cheap ones, the real article 
and not the economical substitute. 

For the life of me I cannot see anything Satanic in 
all this. Tell me, Beloved, only between ourselves, if 
some of these things are not desirable enough in their 
way, and if you and I could not make up our minds to 
put up with some of the least objectionable of thera 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 347 

without any great inward struggle ? Even in the 
matter of ornaments there is something to be said. 
Why should we be told that the New Jerusalem is 
paved with gold, and that its twelve gates are each of 
them a pearl, and that its foundations are garnished 
with sapphires and emeralds and all manner of pre- 
cious stones, if these are not among the most desirable 
of objects ? And is there anything very strange in the 
fact that many a daughter of earth finds it a sweet 
foretaste of heaven to wear about her frail earthly 
tabernacle these glittering reminders of the celestial 
city ? 

Mrs. Midas Goldenrod was not so entirely peculiar 
and anomalous in her likes and dislikes; the only 
trouble was that she mixed up these accidents of life 
too much with life itself, which is so often serenely 
or actively noble and happy without reference to them. 
She valued persons chiefly according to their external 
conditions, and of course the very moment her relative, 
the Lady of our breakfast-table, began to find herself 
in a streak of sunshine she came forward with a 
lighted candle to show her which way her path lay 
before her. 

The Lady saw all this, how plainly, how painfully ! 
yet she exercised a true charity for the weakness of 
her relative. Sensible people have as much considera- 
tion for the frailties of the rich as for those of the 
poor. There is a good deal of excuse for them. Even 
you and I^ philosophers and philanthropists as we may 



348 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

think ourselves, have a dislike for the enforced econo- 
mies, proper and honorable though they certainly are, 
of those who are two or three degrees below us in the 
scale of agreeable living. 

— These are very v/orthy persons you have been 
living with, my dear, — said Mrs. Midas — [the " My 
dear " was an expression which had flowered out more 
luxuriantly than ever before in the new streak of sun- 
shine] — eminently respectable parties, I have no 
question, but then we shall want you to move as soon 
as possible to our quarter of the town, where we can 
see more of you than we have been able to in this 
queer place. 

It was not very pleasant to listen to this kind of 
talk, but the Lady remembered her annual bouquet, 
and her occasional visits from the rich lady, and re- 
strained the inclination to remind her of the humble 
sphere from which she herself, the rich and patroniz- 
ing personage, had worked her way up (if it was up) 
into that world which she seemed to think was the 
only one where a human being could find life worth 
having. Her cheek flushed a little, however, as she 
said to Mrs. Midas that she felt attached to the place 
where she had been living so long. She doubted, she 
was pleased to say, whether she should find better com- 
pany in any circle she was like to move in than she 
left behind her at our boarding-house. I give the 
Old Master the credit of this compliment. If one 
does not agree with half of what he says, at any rate 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 349 

he always has something to say, and entertains and lets 
out opinions and whims and notions of one kind and 
another that one can quarrel with if he is out of 
humor, or carry away to think about if he happens to 
be in the receptive mood. 

But the Lady expressed still more strongly the 
regret she should feel at leaving her young friend, our 
Scheherazade. I cannot wonder at this. The Young 
Girl has lost what little playfulness she had in the 
earlier months of my acquaintance with her. I often 
read her stories partly from m ' interest in her, and 
partly because I find merit enougti in them to deserve 
something better than the rough handling they got 
from her coarse-fibred critic, whoever he was. I see 
evidence that her thoughts are wandering from her 
task, that she has fits of melancholy, and bursts of 
tremulous excitement, and that she has as much as 
she can do to keep herself at all to her stated, inevi- 
table and sometimes almost despairing literary labor. 
I have had some acquaintance with vital phenomena 
of this kind, and know something of the nervous 
nature of young women and its " magnetic storms," if 
I may borrow an expression from the physicists, to 
indicate the perturbations to which they are liable. 
She is more in need of friendship and counsel now 
than ever before, it seems to me, and I cannot bear to 
think that the Lady, who has become like a mother to 
her, is to leave her to her own guidance. 

It is plain enough what is at the bottom of this dis- 



350 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

turbance. The astronomical lessons she has been 
taking have become interesting enough to absorb too 
much of her thoughts, and she finds them wandering 
to the stars or elsewhere, when they should be work- 
ing quietly in the editor's harness. 

The Landlady has her own views on this matter 
which she communicated to me something as follows : 

— I don't quite like to tell folks what a lucky place 
my boarding-house is, for fear I should have all sorts 
of people crowding in to be my boarders for the sake 
of their chances. Folks come here poor and they go 
away rich. Young women come here without a friend 
in the world, and the next thing that happens is a 
gentleman steps up to 'em and says, " If you '11 take 
me for your pardner for life, I '11 give you a good home 
and love you ever so much besides " ; and off goes my 
young lady-boarder into a fine three-story house, as 
grand as the governor's wife, with everything to make 
her comfortable, and a husband to care for her into 
the bargain. That 's the way it is with the young 
ladies that comes to board with me, ever since the 
gentleman that wrote the first book that advertised 
my establishment (and never charged me a cent for it 
neither) merried the Schoolma'am. And I think — 
but that 's between you and me — that it 's going to 
be the same thing right over again between that young 
gentleman and this young girl here — if she doos n't 
kill herself with writing for them newspapers, — it 's 
too bad they don't pay her more for writing her stories, 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 351 

for I read one of 'em that made me cry so the Doctor 
— my Doctor Benjamin — said, "Ma, what makes 
your eyes look so ? " and wanted to rig a machine up 
and look at 'em, but I told him what the matter was, 
and that he need n't fix up his peeking contrivances 
on my account, — anyhow she 's a nice young woman 
as ever lived, and as industrious with that pen of hers 
as if she was at work with a sewing-machine, — and 
there ain't much difference, for that matter, between 
sewing on shirts and writing on stories, — one way 
you work with your foot, and the other way you work 
with your fingers, but I rather guess there 's more 
headache in the stories than there is in the stitches, 
because you don't have to think quite so hard while 
your foot's going as you do when your fingers is 
at work, scratch, scratch, scratch, scribble, scribble, 
scribble. 

It occurred to me that this last suggestion of 
the Landlady was worth considering by the soft- 
handed, broadcloth-clad spouters to the laboring 
classes, — so called in distinction from the idle people 
who only contrive the machinery and discover the 
processes and lay out the work and draw the charts 
and organize the various movements which keep the 
world going and make it tolerable. The organ-blower 
works harder with his muscles, for that matter, than 
the organ-player, and may perhaps be exasperated into 
thinking himself a downtrodden martyr because he 
does not receive the same pay for his services. 



352 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I will not pretend that it needed the Landlady's 
sagacious guess about the Young Astronomer and his 
pupil to open my eyes to certain possibilities, if not 
probabilities, in that direction. Our Scheherazade 
kept on writing her stories according to agreement, so 
many pages for so many dollars, but some of her read- 
ers began to complain that they could not always 
follow her quite so well as in her earlier efforts. It 
seemed as if she must have fits of absence. In one 
instance her heroine began as a blonde and finished 
as a brunette ; not in consequence of the use of any 
cosmetic, but through simple inadvertence. At last 
it happened in one of her stories that a prominent 
character who had been killed in an early page, not 
equivocally, but mortally, definitively killed, done for, 
and disposed of, reappeared as if nothing had happened 
towards the close of her narrative. Her mind was on 
something else, and she had got two stories mixed up 
and sent her manuscript without having looked it over. 
She told this mishap to the Lady, as something she was 
dreadfully ashamed of and could not possibly account 
for. It had cost her a sharp note from the publisher, 
and would be as good as a dinner to some half-starved 
Bohemian of the critical press. 

The Lady listened to all this very thoughtfully, 
looking at her with great tenderness, and said, '^ My 
poor child ! " Not another word then, but her silence 
meant a good deal. 

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 353 

mucli. But when a woman dispenses with the 
office of that mighty member, when she sheathes her 
natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she 
trusts to still more formidable enginery ; to tears it 
may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which 
Hannibal softened the Alpine rocks, or to the heaving 
bosom, the sight of which has subdued so many stout 
natures, or, it may be, to a sympathizing, quieting look 
which says " Peace, be still ! " to the winds and waves 
of the little inland ocean, in a language that means 
more than speech. 

While these matters were going on the Master and 
I had many talks on many subjects. He had found 
me a pretty good listener, for I had learned that the 
best way of getting at what was worth having from 
him was to wind him up with a question and let 
him run down all of himself. It is easy to turn a 
good talker into an insufferable bore by contradicting 
him, and putting questions for him to stumble over, — 
that is if he is not a bore already, as " good talkers " 
are apt to be, except now and then. 

We had been discussing some knotty points one 
morning when he said all at once : 

— Come into my library with me. I want to read 

you some new passages from an interleaved copy of 

my book. You have n't read the printed part yet. I 

gave you a copy of it, but nobody reads a book that i& 

given to him. Of course not. Nobody but a fool ex- 

w 



354 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

pects him to. He reads a little in it here and there, 
perhaps, and he cuts all the leaves if he cares enough 
about the writer, who will be sure to call on him some 
day, and if he is left alone in his library for five 
minutes will have hunted every corner of it until he 
has found the book he sent, — if it is to be found at 
all, which does n't always happen, if there 's a penal 
colony anywhere in a garret or closet for typographi- 
cal offenders and vagrants. 

— What do you do when you receive a book you 
don't want, from the author ? — said I. 

— Give him a good-natured adjective or two if I 
can, and thank him, and tell him I am lying under a 
sense of obligation to him. 

— That is as good an excuse for lying as almost 
any, — I said. 

— Yes, but look out for the fellows that send you a 
copy of their book to trap you into writing a booksell- 
er's 'advertisement for it. I got caught so once, and 
never heard the end of it and never shall hear it. — 
He took down an elegantly bound volume, on opening 
which appeared a flourishing and eminently flattering 
dedication to himself. — There, — said he, — what 
could I do less than acknowledge such a compliment 
in polite terms, and hope and expect the book would 
prove successful, and so forth and so forth ? Well, I 
get a letter every few months from some new locality 
where the man that made that book is covering the 
fences with his placards, asking me whether I wrote 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 355 

that letter which he keeps in stereotype and has kept 
so any time these dozen or fifteen years. Animus tuus 
oculus, as the freshmen used to say. If her Majesty, 
the Queen of England, sends you a copy of her 
" Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands," 
be sure you mark your letter of thanks for it Private ! 

We had got comfortably seated in his library in the 
mean time, and the Master had taken up his book. I 
noticed that every other page was left blank, and that 
he had written in a good deal of new matter. 

— I tell you what, — he said, — there 's so much 
intelligence about nowadays in books and newspapers 
and talk that it 's mighty hard to write without getting 
something or other worth listening to into your essay 
or your volume. The foolishest book is a kind of 
leaky boat on a sea of wisdom ; some of the wisdom 
will get in anyhow. Every now and then I find some- 
thing in my book that seems so good to me, I can't 
help thinking it must have leaked in. I suppose other 
people discover that it came through a leak, full as 
soon as I do. You must write a book or two to find 
out how much and how little you know and have to 
say. Then you must read some notices of it by some- 
body that loves you and one or two by somebody that 
hates you. You '11 find yourself a very odd piece of 
property after you 've been through these experiences. 
They 're trying to the constitution ; I 'm always glad 
to hear that a friend is as well as can be expected 
after he 's had a book. 



356 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

You must n't think there are no better things in 
these pages of mine than the ones I 'm going to read 
you, but you may come across something here that I 
forgot to say when we were talking over these mat- 
ters. 

He began, reading from the manuscript portion of 
his book: 

— We find it hard to get and to keep any private 
property in thought. Other people are all the time 
saying the same things we are hoarding to say when 
we get ready. [He looked up from his book just here 
and said, " Don't be afraid, I am not going to quote 
Pereant"^ One of our old boarders — the one that 
called himself " The Professor," I think it was — said 
some pretty audacious things about what he called 
"pathological piety," as I remember, in one of his 
papers. And here comes along Mr. Galton, and shows 
in detail from religious biographies that "there is a 
frequent correlation between an unusually devout dis- 
position and a weak constitution." Neither of them 
appeared to know that John Bunyan had got at the 
same fact long before them. He tells us, " The more 
healthy the lusty man is, the more prone he is unto 
evil." If the converse is true, no wonder that good 
people, according to Bunyan, are always in trouble 
and terror, for he says, 

" A Christian man is never long at ease; 
When one fright 's gone, another doth him seize." 

If invalidism and the nervous timidity which is apt to 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 357 

go with it are elements of spiritual superiority, it fol- 
lows that pathology and toxicology should form a most 
important part of a theological education, so that a 
divine might know how to keep a parish in a state of 
chronic bad health in order that it might be virtuous. 

It is a great mistake to think that a man's re- 
ligion is going to rid him of his natural qualities. 
" Bishop Hall " (as you may remember to have seen 
quoted elsewhere) " prefers Nature before Grace in the 
Election of a wife, because, saith he, it will be a hard 
Task, where the Nature is peevish and froward, for 
Grace to make an entire conquest while Life lasteth." 

"Nature" and "Grace" have been contrasted with 
each other in a way not very respectful to the Divine 
omnipotence. Kings and queens reign " by the Grace 
of God," but a sweet, docile, pious disposition, such 
as is born in some children and grows up with them, 
— that congenital gift which good Bishop Hall would 
look for in a wife, — is attributed to " Nature." In 
fact " Nature " and " Grace," as handled by the scho- 
lastics, are nothing more nor less than two hostile 
Pivinities in the Pantheon of post-classical polythe- 
ism. 

What is the secret of the profound interest which 
" Darwinism " has excited in the minds and hearts of 
more persons than dare to confess their doubts and 
hopes? It is because it restores "Nature" to its 
place as a true divine manifestation. It is that it 
removes the traditional curse from that helpless infant 



358 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

lying in its mother's arms. It is that it lifts from the 
shoulders of man the responsibility for the fact of 
death. It is that, if it is true, woman can no longer 
be taunted with having brought down on herself the 
pangs which make her sex a martyrdom. If develop- 
ment upward is the general law of the race ; if we 
have grown by natural evolution out of the cave-man, 
and even less human forms of life, we have everything 
to hope from the future. That the question can be 
discussed without offence shows that we are entering 
on a new era> a Revival greater than that of Letters, 
the Revival of Humanity. 

The prevalent view of " Nature " has been akin to 
that which long reigned with reference to disease. 
This used to be considered as a distinct entity apart 
from the processes of life, of which it is one of the 
manifestations. It was a kind of demon to be at- 
tacked with things of odious taste and smell ; to be fu- 
migated out of the system as the evil spirit was driven 
from the bridal-chamber in the story of Tobit. The 
Doctor of earlier days, even as I can remember him, 
used to exorcise the demon of disease with recipes of 
odor as potent as that of the angel's diabolifuge, — the 
smoke from a fish's heart and liver, duly burned, — 
" the which smell when the evil spirit had smelled he 
fled into the uttermost parts of Egypt." The very 
moment that disease passes into the category of vital 
processes, and is recognized as an occurrence abso- 
lutely necessary, inevitable, and as one may say, nor- 



THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 359 

mal under certain given conditions of constitution and 
circumstance, the medicine-man loses his half-miracu- 
lous endowments. The mythical serpent is untwined 
from the staff of Esculapius, which thenceforth be- 
comes a useful walking-stick, and does not pretend to 
be anything more. 

Sin, like disease, is a vital process. It is a function, 
and not an entity. It must be studied as a section of 
anthropology. l!^o preconceived idea must be allowed 
to interfere with our investigation of the deranged 
spiritual function, any more than the old ideas of de- 
moniacal possession must be allowed to interfere with 
our study of epilepsy. Spiritual pathology is a proper 
subject for direct observation and analysis, like any 
other subject involving a series of living actions. 

In these living actions everything is progressive. 
There are sudden changes of character in what is 
called " conversion " which, at first, hardly seem to 
come into line with the common laws of evolution. 
But these changes have been long preparing, and it is 
just as much in the order of nature that certain char- 
acters should burst all at once from the rule of evil 
propensities, as it is that the evening primrose should 
explode, as it were, into bloom with audible sound, as 
you may read in Keats's Endymion, or observe in your 
own garden. 

There is a continual tendency in men to fence in 
themselves and a few of their neighbors who agree 
with them in their ideas, as if they were an exception 



360 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

to their race. We must not allow any creed or relig- 
ion whatsoever to confiscate to its own private use 
and benefit the virtues which belong to our common 
humanity. The Good Samaritan helped his wounded 
neighbor simply because he was a suffering fellow- 
creature. Do you think your charitable act is more 
acceptable than the Good Samaritan's, because you do 
it in the name of Him who made the memory of that 
kind man immortal ? Do you mean that you would 
not give the cup of cold water for the sake simply and 
solely of the poor, suffering fellow-mortal, as willingly 
as you now do, professing to give it for the sake of Him 
who is not thirsty or in need of any help of yours ? 
We must ask questions like this, if we are to claim for 
our common nature what belongs to it. 

The scientific study of man is the most difficult of 
all branches of knovfledge. It requires, in the first 
place, an entire new terminology to get rid of that 
enormous load of prejudices with which every term 
applied to the malformations, the functional disturb- 
ances, and the organic diseases of the moral nature 
is at present burdened. Take that one word Sin, 
for instance: all those who have studied the sub- 
ject from nature and not from books know perfectly 
well that a certain fraction of what is so called is 
nothing more or less than a symptom of hysteria ; 
that another fraction is the index of a limited degree 
of insanity ; that still another is the result of a con- 
genital tendency which removes the act we sit in 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 361 

judgment upon from the sphere of self-determination, 
if not entirely, at least to such an extent that the sub- 
ject of the tendency cannot be judged by any normal 
standard. 

To study nature without fear is possible, but with- 
out reproach, impossible. The man who worships in 
the temple of knowledge must carry his arms with 
him as our Puritan fathers had to do when they 
gathered in their first rude meeting-houses. It is 
a fearfnl thing to meddle with the ark which holds 
the mysteries of creation. I remember that when I 
was a child the tradition was whispered round among 
us little folks that if we tried to count the stars we 
should drop down dead. Nevertheless, the stars have 
been counted and the astronomer has survived. This 
nursery legend is the child's version of those super- 
stitions which would have strangled in their cra- 
dles the young sciences now adolescent and able to 
take care of themselves, and which, no longer dar- 
ing to attack these, are watching vdth hostile aspect 
the rapid growth of the comparatively new science of 
man. 

The real difficulty of the student of nature at this 
time is to reconcile absolute freedom and perfect fear- 
lessness with that respect for the past, that reverence 
for the spirit of reverence wherever we find it, that 
tenderness for the weakest fibres by which the hearts 
of our fellow-creatures hold to their religious convic- 
tions, which will make the transition from old belief 

16 



362 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

to a larger light and liberty an interstitial change and 
not a violent mutilation. 

I remember once going into a little church in a 
small village some miles from a great European capi- 
tal. The special object of adoration in this humblest 
of places of worship was a bambino , a holy infant, done 
in wax, and covered with cheap ornaments such as a 
little girl would like to beautify her doU with. Many 
a good protestant of the old puritan type would have 
felt a strong impulse to seize this " idolatrous " figure 
and dash it to pieces on the stone floor of the little 
church. But one must have lived awhile among 
simple-minded pious Catholics to know what this 
poor waxen image and the whole baby-house of 
bambinos mean for a humble, unlettered, unimagina- 
tive peasantry. He will find that the true office of 
this eidolon is to fix the mind of the worshipper, and 
that in virtue of the devotional thoughts it has called 
forth so often for so many years in the mind of that 
poor old woman who is kneeling before it, it is no 
longer a wax doll for her, but has undergone a tran- 
substantiation quite as real as that of the Eucharist. 
The moral is that we must not roughly smash other 
people's idols because we know, or think we know, 
that they are of cheap human manufacture. 

— Do you think cheap manufactures encourage idle- 
ness ? — said I. 

The Master stared. Well he might, for I had been 
getting a little drowsy, and wishing to show that I had 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 363 

been awake and attentive, asked a question suggested 
by some words I had caught, but which showed that 
I had not been taking the slightest idea from what he 
was reading me. He stared, shook his head slowly, 
smiled good-humoredly, took off his great round spec- 
tacles, and shut up his book. 

— Sat prata biberunt, — he said. A sick man that 
gets talking about himself, a woman that gets talking 
about her baby, and an author that begins reading out 
of his own book, never know when to stop. You '11 
think of some of these things you 've been getting 
half asleep over by and by. I don't want you to 
believe anything I say, I only want you to try to see 
what makes me believe it. 

My young friend, the Astronomer, has, I suspect, 
been making some addition to his manuscript. At 
any rate some of the lines he read us in the afternoon 
of this same day had never enjoyed the benefit of my 
revision, and I think they had but just been written. 
I noticed that his manner was somewhat more excited 
than usual, and his voice just towards the close a 
little tremulous. Perhaps I may attribute his improve- 
ment to the effect of my criticisms, but whatever the 
reason, I think these lines are very nearly as correct as 
they would have been if I had looked them over. 



364 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS. 

VII. 

What if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved 
While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, 
And still remembered every look and tone 
Of that dear earthly sister who was left 
Among the unwise virgins at the gate, — 
Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train, - — 
What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host 
Of chanting angels, in some transient lull 
Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry 
Of its lost darUng, whom in evil hour 
Some wilder pulse of nature led astray 
And left an outcast in a world of fire, 
Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, 
Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill 
To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain 
From worn-out souls that only ask to die, — 
Would it not long to leave the bliss of Heaven, — 
Bearing a little water in its hand 
To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain 
With Him we call our Father? Or is all 
So changed in such as taste celestial joy 
They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe. 
The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed 
Her cradled slumbers ; she who once had held 
A babe upon her bosom from its voice 
Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same ? 

No ! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird 
Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast 
Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 365 

We build to mimic life with pygmy hands, — 
Not in those earliest days when men ran wild 
And gashed each other with their knives of stone, 
When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows 
And their flat hands were callous in the palm 
With walking in the fashion of their sires. 
Grope as they might to find a cruel god 
To work their will on such as human wrath 
Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left 
With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, 
Could hate have shaped a demon more malign 
Than him the dead men mummied in their creed 
And taught their trembling children to adore ! 

Made in ^is image ! Sweet and gracious souls 
Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names. 
Is not your memory still the precious mould 
That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer ? 
Thus only I behold him, like to them, 
Long-suflfering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, 
If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, 
Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach 
The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin. 
Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, 
And seal his pardon with a pitying tear ! 

Four gospels tell their story to mankind, 
And none so full of soft, caressing words 
That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe 
Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned 
In the meek service of his gracious art 
The tones which like the medicinal balms 
That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls. 
— O that the loving woman, she who sat 
So long a listener at her Master's feet, 



366 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Had left us Mary's Gospel, — all she heard 

Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man ! 

Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read 

The messages of love between the lines 

Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue 

Of him who deals in terror as his trade 

With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame I 

They tell of angels whispering round the bed 

Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, 

Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, 

Of Him who blessed the children ; of the land 

Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, 

Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, 

Of the white robes the winged creatures wear, 

The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings 

One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore ! 

— We too had human mothers, even as Thou, 
Whom we have learned to worship as remote 
From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. 
The milk of woman filled our branching veins, 
She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, 
And folded round us her untiring arms. 
While the first unremembered twilight year 
Shaped us to conscious being ; still we feel 
Her pulses in our own, — too faintly feel ; 
Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds t 

Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell. 
Not fi'om the conclave where the holy men 
Glare on each other, as with angry eyes 
They battle for God's glory and their own. 
Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands 
Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn, — 
Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear 
The Father's voice that speaks itself divine ! 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 367 

Love must be still our Master ; till we learn 
What he can teach us of a woman's heart, 
We know not His, whose love embraces all. 

There are certain nervous conditions peculiar to 
women in which the common effects of poetry and of 
music upon their sensibilities are strangely exagger- 
ated. It was not perhaps to be wondered at that 
Octavia fainted when Virgil in reading from his great 
poem came to the line beginning Tu Marcellus eris. 
It is not hard to believe the story told of one of the two 
Davidson sisters, that the singing of some of Moore's 
plaintive melodies would so impress her as almost to 
take away the faculties of sense and motion. But 
there must have been some special cause for the singu- 
lar nervous state into which this reading threw the 
young girl, our Scheherazade. She was doubtless 
tired with overwork and troubled with the thought 
that she was not doing herself justice, and that she 
was doomed to be the helpless prey of some of those 
corbies who not only pick out corbies' eyes, but find 
no other diet so nutritious and agreeable. 

Whatever the cause may have been, her heart 
heaved tumultuously, her color came and went, and 
though she managed to avoid a scene by the exercise 
of all her self-control, I watched her very anxiously, 
for I was afraid she would have had a hysteric turn, 
or in one of her pallid moments that she would have 
fainted and fallen like one dead before us. 



368 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

I was very glad, therefore, when evening came, to 
find that she was going out for a lesson on the stars. 
I knew the open air was what she needed, and I 
thought the walk would do her good, whether she 
made any new astronomical acquisitions or not. 

It was now late in the autumn, and the trees were 
pretty nearly stripped of their leaves. There was no 
place so favorable as the Common for the study of the 
heavens. The skies were brilliant with stars, and the 
air was just keen enough to remind our young friends 
that the cold season was at hand. They wandered 
round for a while, and at last found themselves under 
the Great Elm, drawn thither, no doubt, by the mag- 
netism it is so well known to exert over the natives of 
its own soil and those who have often been imder the 
shadow of its outstretched arms. The venerable sur- 
vivor of its contemporaries that flourished in the days 
when Blackstone rode beneath it on his bull was now 
a good deal broken by age, yet not without marks of 
lusty vitality. It had been wrenched and twisted and 
battered by so many scores of winters that some of its 
limbs were crippled and many of its joints were shaky, 
and but for the support of the iron braces that lent 
their strong sinews to its more infirm members it 
would have gone to pieces in the first strenuous north- 
easter or the first sudden and violent gale from the 
southwest. But there it stood, and there it stands as 
yet, — though its obituary was long ago written after 
one of the terrible storms that tore its branches,— 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 369 

leafing out hopefully in April as if it were trying in its 
dumb language to lisp ^^ Our Father," and dropping its 
slender burden of foliage in October as softly as if it 
were whispering Amen ! 

Not far from the ancient and monumental tree lay a 
small sheet of water, once agile with life and vocal 
with evening melodies, but now stirred only by the 
swallow as he dips his wing, or by the morning bath 
of the English sparrows, those high-headed, thick- 
bodied, full-feeding, hot-tempered little John Bulls 
that keep up such a swashing and swabbing and spat- 
tering round all the water basins, one might think 
from the fuss they make about it that a bird never 
took a bath before, and that they were the missionar 
ries of ablution to the unwashed Western world. 

There are those who speak lightly of this small 
aqueous expanse, the eye of the sacred enclosure, 
which has looked unwinking on the happy faces of so 
many natives and the curious features of so many 
strangers. The music of its twilight minstrels has 
long ceased, but their memory lingers like an echo in 
the name it bears. Cherish it, inhabitants of the two- 
hilled city, once three-hilled ; ye who have said to the 
mountain, " Remove hence," and turned the sea into 
dry land ! May no contractor fill his pockets by under- 
taking to fill thee, thou granite-girdled lakelet, or drain 
the civic purse by drawing off thy waters ! For art 
thou not the Palladium of our Troy ? Didst thou not, 
like the Divine image which was the safeguard of 

16* X 



370 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Ilium, fall from the skies, and if the Trojan could look 
with pride upon the heaven-descended form of the 
Goddess of Wisdom, cannot he who dwells by thy 
shining oval look in that mirror and contemplate Him- 
self, — the Native of Boston ? 

There must be some fatality which carries our young 
men and maidens in the direction of the Common 
when they have anything very particular to exchange 
their views about. At any rate I remember two of 
our young friends brought up here a good many years 
ago, and I understand that there is one path across the 
enclosure which a young man must not ask a young 
woman to take with him unless he means business, for 
an action will hold for breach of promise, if she con- 
sents to accompany him, and he chooses to forget his 
obligations. 

Our two young people stood at the western edge of 
the little pool, studying astronomy in the reflected 
firmament. The Pleiades were trembling in the wave 
before them, and the three great stars of Orion, — for 
these constellations were both glittering in the eastern 
sky. 

" There is no place too humble for the glories of 
heaven to shine in," she said. 

" And their splendor makes even this little pool beau- 
tiful and noble," he answered. " Where is the light 
to come from that is to do as much for our poor 
human lives ? " 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 371 

A simple question enough, but the young girl felt 
her color change as she answered, " From friendship, I 
think." 

— Grazing only as yet, — not striking full, — hardly 
hitting at all, — but there are questions and answers 
that come so very near, the wind of them alone almost 
takes the breath away. 

There was an interval of silence. Two young per- 
sons can stand looking at water for a long time with- 
out feeling the necessity of speaking. Especially when 
the water is alive with stars and the young persons 
are thoughtful and impressible. The water seems to 
do half the thinking while one is looking at it ; its 
movements are felt in the brain very much like 
thought. When I was in full training as a flaneur, 
I could stand on the Pont Neuf with the other experts 
in the great science of passive cerebration and look at 
the river for half an hour with so little mental articula- 
tion that when I moved on it seemed as if my think- 
ing-marrow had been asleep and was just waking up 
refreshed after its nap. 

So the reader can easily account for the interval of 
silence. It is hard to tell how long it would have 
lasted, but just then a lubberly intrusive boy threw a 
great stone, which convulsed the firmament, — the one 
at their feet, I mean. The six Pleiads disappeared as 
if in search of their lost sister ; the belt of Orion was 
broken asunder, and a hundred worlds dissolved back 
into chaos. They turned away and strayed off into 



372 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

one of the more open paths, where the view of the 
sky over them was unobstructed. For some reason or 
other the astronomical lesson did not get on very fast 
this evening. 

Presently the young man asked his pupil : 

— Do you know what the constellation directly over 
our heads is ? 

— Is it not Cassiopea ? — she asked a little hesitat- 
ingly. 

— No, it is Andromeda. You ought not to have 
forgotten her, for I remember showing you a double 
star, the one in her right foot, through the equatorial 
telescope. You have not forgotten the double star, — 
the two that shone for each other and made a little 
world by themselves ? 

— No, indeed, — she answered, and blushed, and 
felt ashamed because she had said indeed, as if it had 
been an emotional recollection. 

The double-star allusion struck another dead silence. 
She would have given a week's pay to any invisible 
attendant that would have cut her stay-lace. 

At last : Do you know the story of Andromeda ? 
— he said. 

— Perhaps I did once, but suppose I don't remem- 
ber it. 

He told her the story of the unfortunate maiden 
chained to a rock and waiting for a sear-beast that was 
coming to devour her, and how Perseus came and set 
her free, and won her love with her life. And then he 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 373 

began something about a young man chained to his 
rock, which was a star-gazer's tower, a prey by turns 
to ambition, and lonely self-contempt and unwholesome 
scorn of the life he looked down upon after the se- 
renity of the finnament, and endless questionings that 
led him nowhere, — and now he had only one more 
question to ask. He loved her. Would she break his 
chain ? — He held both his hands out towards her, the 
palms together, as if they were fettered at the wrists. 
She took hold of them very gently ; parted them a 
little ; then wider — wider — and found herself all at 
once folded, unresisting, in her lover's arms. 

So there was a new double-star in the living firma- 
ment. The constellations seemed to kindle with new 
splendors as the student and the story-teller walked 
homeward in their light ; Alioth and Algol looked 
down on them as on the first pair of lovers they shone 
over, and the autumn air seemed full of harmonies as 
when the morning stars sang together. 



XIL 



The Old Master had asked us, the Young Astron- 
omer and myself, into his library, to hear him read 
some passages from his interleaved book. We three 



374 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

had formed a kind of little club without knowing it 
from the time when the young man began reading 
those extracts from his poetical reveries which I have 
reproduced in these pages. Perhaps we agreed in too 
many things, — I suppose if we could have had a 
good hard-headed, old-fashioned Xew England divine 
to meet with us it might have acted as a wholesome 
corrective. For we had it all our own way ; the 
Lady's kindly remonstrance was taken in good part, 
but did not keep us from talking pretty freely, and as 
for the young girl, she listened with the tranquillity 
and fearlessness which a very simple trusting creed 
naturally gives those who hold it. The fewer out- 
works to the citadel of belief, the fewer points there 
are to be threatened and endangered. 

The reader must not suppose that I even attempt to 
reproduce everything exactly as it took place in our 
conversations, or when we met to listen to the Master's 
prose or to the Young Astronomer's verse. I do not 
pretend to give all the pauses and interruptions by 
question or otherwise. I could not always do it if I 
tried, but I do not want to, for oftentimes it is better to 
let the speaker or reader go on continuously, although 
there may have been many breaks in the course of 
the conversation or reading. When, for instance, I by 
and by reproduce what the Landlady said to us, I 
shall give it almost without any hint that it was 
arrested in its flow from time to time by various 
expressions on the part of the hearers. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 375 

I can hardly say what the reason of it was, but it is 
Very certain that I had a vague sense of some impend- 
ing event as we took our seats in the Master's library. 
He seemed particularly anxious that we should be 
comfortably seated, and shook up the cushions of the 
arm-chairs himself, and got them into the right places. 

Now go to sleep — he said — or listen, — just which 
you like best. But I am going to begin by telling you 
both a secret. 

Liberavi animam meam. That is the meaning of 
my book and of my literary life, if I may give such a 
name to that party-colored shred of human existence. 
I have unburdened myself in this book, and in some 
other pages, of what I was born to say. Many things 
that I have said in my ripe days have been aching in 
my soul since I was a mere child. I say aching, be- 
cause they conflicted with many of my inherited beliefs, 
or rather traditions. I did not know then that two 
strains of blood were striving in me for the mastery, 
' — two ! twenty, perhaps, — twenty thousand, for aught 
I know, — but represented to me by two, — paternal 
and maternal. Blind forces in themselves; shaping 
thoughts as they shaped features and battled for the 
moulding of constitution and the mingling of temper- 
ament. 

Philosophy and poetry came to me before I knew 
their names. 

Je fis mes premiers vers, sans savoir les ecrire. 

Not verses so much as the stuff that verses are made 



376 THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

of. I don't suppose that the thoughts which came up 
of themselves in my mind were so mighty different 
from what come up in the minds of other young folks. 
And that 's the best reason I could give for telling 'em. 
I don't believe anything I 've written is as good as it 
seemed to me when I wrote it, — he stopped, for he 
was afraid he was lying, — not much that I 've written, 
at any rate, — he said — with a smile at the honesty 
which made him qualify his statement. But I do 
know this : I have struck a good many chords, first 
and last, in the consciousness of other people. I con- 
fess to a tender feeling for my little brood of thoughts. 
When they have been welcomed and praised it has 
pleased me, and if at any time they have been rudely 
handled and spitefully entreated it has cost me a little 
worry. I don't despise reputation, and I should like 
to be remembered as having said something worth 
lasting well enough to last. 

But all that is nothing to the main comfort I feel as 
a writer. I have got rid of something my mind could 
not keep to itself and rise as it was meant to into 
higher regions. I saw the aeronauts the other day emp- 
tying from the bags some of the sand that served as 
ballast. It glistened a moment in the sunlight as a 
slender shower, and then was lost and seen no more 
as it scattered itself unnoticed. But the air-ship rose 
higher as the sand was poured out, and so it seems to 
me I have felt myself getting above the mists and 
clouds whenever I have lightened myself of some 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 377 

portion of the mental ballast I have carried with me. 
Why should I hope or fear when I send out my book ? 
I have had my reward, for I have wrought out my 
thought, I have said my say, I have freed my soul. I 
can afford to be forgotten. 

Look here ! — he said. I keep oblivion always be- 
fore me. — He pointed to a singularly perfect and 
beautiful trilobite which was lying on a pile of manu- 
scripts. — Each time I fill a sheet of paper with what 
I am writing, I lay it beneath this relic of a dead 
world, and project my thought forward into eternity 
as far as this extinct crustacean carries it backward. 
When my heart beats too lustily with vain hopes of 
being remembered, I press the cold fossil against it and 
it grows calm. I touch my forehead with it, and its 
anxious furrows grow smooth. Our world, too, with 
all its breathing life, is but a leaf to be folded with the 
other strata, and if I am only patient, by and by I shall 
be just as famous as imperious Csesar himself, embed- 
ded with me in a conglomerate. 

He began reading : — ^' There is no new thing un- 
der the sun," said the Preacher. He would not say 
so now, if he should come to Kfe for a little while, 
and have his photograph taken, and go up in a bal- 
loon, and take a trip by railroad and a voyage by 
steamship, and get a message from General Grant by 
the cable, and see a man's leg cut off without its 
hurting him. If it did not take his breath away 



378 THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

and lay him out as flat as the Queen of Sheba was 
knocked over by the splendors of his court, he must 
have rivalled our Indians in the nil admirari line. 

For all that, it is a strange thing to see what num- 
bers of new things are really old. There are many 
modern contrivances that are of as early date as the 
first man, if not thousands of centuries older. Every- 
body knows how all the arrangements of our tele- 
scopes and microscopes are anticipated in the eye, and 
how our best musical instruments are surpassed by the 
larynx. But there are some very odd things any anat- 
omist can tell, showing how our recent contrivances 
are anticipated in the human body. In the aliment- 
ary canal are certain pointed eminences called villi^ 
and certain ridges called valvulw conniventes. The 
makers of heating apparatus have exactly reproduced 
the first in the " pot " of their furnaces, and the second 
in many of the radiators to be seen in our public 
buildings. The object in the body and the heating 
apparatus is the same ; to increase the extent of sur- 
face. — We mix hair with plaster (as the Egyptians 
mixed straw with clay to make bricks) so that it shall 
hold more firmly. But before man had any artificial 
dwelling the same contrivance of mixing fibrous 
threads with a cohesive substance had been em- 
ployed in the jointed fabric of his own spinal col- 
umn. Indior-rubber is modern, but the yellow ani- 
mal substance which is elastic like that, and serves 
the same purpose in the animal economy which that 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 379 

serves in our mechanical contrivances, is as old as the 
mammalia. The dome, the round and the Gothic 
arch, the groined roof, the flying buttress, are all famil- 
iar to those who have studied the bony frame of man. 
All forms of the lever and all the principal kinds of 
hinges are to be met with in our own frames. The 
valvular arrangements of the bloodvessels are unap- 
proaclied by any artificial apparatus, and the arrange- 
ments for preventing friction are so perfect that two 
surfaces will play on each other for fourscore years or 
more and never once trouble their owner by catching 
or rubbing so as to be felt or heard. 

But stranger than these repetitions are the coinci- 
dences one finds in the manners and speech of antiq- 
uity and our OAvn time. In the days when Flood 
Ireson was drawn in the cart by the Msenads of 
Marblehead, that fishing town had the name of nurtui^ 
ing a young population not over fond of strangers. It 
used to be said that if an unknown landsman showed 
himself in the streets, the boys would follow after him, 
crying, " Rock him ! Rock him ! He 's got a long-tailed 
coat on ! " 

Now if one opens the Odyssey, he will find that 
the Phseacians, three thousand years ago, were won- 
derfully like these youthful Marbleheaders. The blue- 
eyed Goddess who convoys Ulysses, under the disguise 
of a young maiden of the place, gives him some excel- 
lent advice. " Hold your tongue," she says, '^ and don't 
look at anybody or ask any questions, for these are 



380 THE POET AT THE BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

seafaring people, and don't like to have strangers 
round or anybody that does not belong here." 

Who would have thought that the saucy question 
" Does your mother know you 're out ? " was the very 
same that Horace addressed to the bore who attacked 
him in the Via Sacra ? 

Interpellandi locus hie erat ; Est tibi mater ? 
Cognatij quels te salvo est opus ? 

And think of the London cockney's prefix of the letter 
h to innocent words beginning with a vowel, having 
its prototype in the speech of the vulgar Roman, as 
may be seen in the verses of Catullus : 

C7^ommoda dicebat, siquando commoda vellet 

Dicere, et Mnsidias Arrius insidias. 
Et turn mirifice sperabat se esse locutum, 

Cum quantum poterat, dixerat Ainsidias .... 
Hoc misso in Syriam, requierant omnibus aures .... 

Cum subito affertur nuncius borribilis ; 
lonios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset, 

Jam non lonios esse, sed ^ionios. 

— Our neighbors of Manhattan have an excellent 
jest about our crooked streets which, if they were a 
little more familiar with a native author of unques 
tionable veracity, they would strike out from the letter 
of " Our Boston Correspondent " where it is a source 
of perennial hilarity. It is worth while to reprint, for 
the benefit of whom it may concern, a paragraph from 
the authentic history of the venerable Diedrich Knicfc 
erbocker : 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 381 

" The sage council, as has been mentioned in a pre- 
ceding chapter, not being able to determine upon any 
plan for the building of their city, — the cows, in a 
laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their peculiar 
charge, and as they went to and from pasture, estab- 
lished paths through the bushes, on each side of which 
the good folks built their houses ; which is one cause 
of the rambling and picturesque turns and labyrinths, 
which distinguish certain streets of New York at this 
very day." 

— ^When I was a little boy there came to stay with 
us for a while a young lady with a singularly white 
complexion. Now I had often seen the masons slack- 
ing lime, and I thought it was the whitest thing I had 
ever looked upon. So I always called this fair visitor 
of ours Slacked Lime, I think she is still living in a 
neighboring State, and I am sure she has never for- 
gotten the fanciful name I gave her. But within ten 
or a dozen years I have seen this very same comparison 
going the round of the papers, and credited to a Welsh 
poet, David Ap Gwyllym, or something like that, by 
name. 

— I turned a pretty sentence enough in one of my 
lectures about finding poppies springing up amidst the 
corn ; as if it had been foreseen by nature that wher- 
ever there should be hunger that asked for food, there 
would be pain that needed relief, — and many years 
afterwards I had the pleasure of finding that Mistress 
Piozzi had been beforehand with me in suggesting the 
game moral reflection. 



382 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— I should like to carry some of my friends to see 
a giant bee-hive I have discovered. Its hum can be 
heard half a mile, and the great white swarm counts 
its tens of thousands. They pretend to call it a 
planing-mill, but if it is not a bee-hive it is so like 
one that if a hundred people have not said so before 
me, it is very singular that they have not. If I wrote 
verses I would try to bring it in, and I suppose people 
would start up in a dozen places, and say, ^' 0, that 
beehive simile is mine, — and besides, did not Mr. 
Bayard Taylor call the snowflakes ^ white bees ' ? " 

I think tlie Old Master had chosen these trivialities 
on purpose to amuse the Young Astronomer and 
myself, if possible, and so make sure of our keeping 
awake while he went on reading, as follows : 

— How the sweet souls of all time strike the same 
note, the same because it is in unison with the divine 
voice that sings to them ! I read in the Zend Avesta, 
" No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength speaks 
so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength speaks 
good. No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength 
does so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength 
does good." 

And now leave Persia and Zoroaster, and come aown 
with me to our own New England and one of our old 
Puritan preachers. It was in the dreadful days of the 
Salem Witchcraft delusion that one Jonathan Single- 
tary, being then in the prison at Ipswich, gave his 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 353 

testimony as to certain fearful occurrences, — a great 
noise, as of many cats climbing, skipping, and jumping, 
of throwing about of furniture, and of men walking in 
the chambers, with crackling and shaking as if the 
house would fall upon him. 

" I was at present," he says, " something affrighted ; 
yet considering what I had lately heard made out by 
Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is more good in 
God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is 
the greatest good and sin the greatest evil, yet the 
first Being of evil cannot weane the scales or over- 
power the first Being of good : so considering that the 
authour of good was of greater power than the authour 
of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me 
fi*om being out of measure frighted." 

I shaU always bless the memory of this poor, timid 
creature for savdng that dear remembrance of " Match- 
less Mitchel." How many, like him, have thought 
they were preaching a new gospel, when they were 
only reaffirming the principles which underlie the 
Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the 
noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds ! But spo- 
ken by those solemn lips to those stem, simple-minded 
hearers, the words I have cited seem to me to have a 
fi:'agrance like the precious ointment of spikenard with 
which Mary anointed her Master's feet. I can see the 
little bare meeting-house, with the godly deacons, and 
the grave matrons, and the comely maidens, and the 
sober manhood of the village, with the small group of 



384 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

college students sitting by themselves under the shadow 
of the awful Presidential Presence, all listening to that 
preaching, which was, as Cotton Mather says, '^ as a very 
lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice " ; and as 
the holy pastor utters those blessed words, which are 
not of any one church or age, but of all time, the hum- 
ble place of worship is filled with their perfume, as the 
house where Mary knelt was filled with the odor of 
the precious ointment. 

— The Master rose, as he finished reading this sen- 
tence, and, walking to the window, adjusted a curtain 
which he seemed to find a good deal of trouble in get- 
ting to hang just as he wanted it. 

He came back to his arm-chair, and began reading 
again : 

— If men would only open their eyes to the fact 
which stares them in the face from history, and is 
made clear enough by the slightest glance at the con- 
dition of mankind, that humanity is of immeasurably 
greater importance than their own or any other par- 
ticular belief, they would no more attempt to make 
private property of the grace of God than to fence in 
the sunshine for their own special use and enjoyment. 

We are all tattoed in our cradles with the beliefs 
of our tribe ; the record may seem superficial, but it 
is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out 
of the superstitious fears which were early implanted 
in his imagination ; no matter how utterly his reason 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 385 

may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman 
did about ghosts, Je rCy crois pas^ mais je les crains, 
— "I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, 
nevertheless." 

— As people grow older they come at length to live 
so much in memory that they often think with a kind 
of pleasure of losing their dearest blessings. Nothing 
can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem 
when remembered. The friend we love best may 
sometimes weary us by his presence or vex us by his 
infirmities. How sweet to think of him as he will be 
to us after we have outlived him ten or a dozen years ! 
Then we can recall him in his best moments, bid him 
stay with us as long as we want his company, and send 
him away when we wish to be alone again. One 
might alter Shenstone's well-known epitaph to suit 
such a case : — 

Heu ! quanto minus est cum te vivo versari 
Quam erit (vel esset) tui mortui reminisse ! 

*' Alas ! how much less the delight of thy living presence 
Than will (or would) be that of remembering thee when 
thou hast left us ! " 

I want to stop here — I the Poet — and put in a few 
reflections of my own, suggested by what I have been 
giving the reader from the Master's Book, and in a 
similar vein. 

17 T 



386 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

— How few things there are that do not change 
their whole aspect in the course of a single generation ! 
The landscape around us is wholly different. Even 
the outlines of the hills that surround us are changed 
by the creeping of the villages with their spires and 
school-houses up their sides. The sky remains the 
same, and the ocean. A few old churchyards look 
very much as they used to, except, of course, in Bos- 
ton, where the gravestones have been rooted up and 
planted in rows with walks between them, to the utter 
disgrace and ruin of our most venerated cemeteries. 
The Registry of Deeds and the Probate Office show 
us the same old folios, where we can read our grand- 
father's title to his estate (if we had a grandfather and 
he happened to own anything) and see how many pots 
and kettles there were in his kitchen by the inventory 
of his personal property. 

Among living people none remain so long unchanged 
as the actors. I can see the same Othello to-day, if I 
choose, that I saw when I was a boy smothering Mrs. 
Duff-Desdemona with the pillow, under the instigations 
of Mr. Cooper-Iago. A few stone heavier than he 
was then, no doubt, but the same truculent blacka- 
moor that took by the thr-r-r-oat the circumcised dog in 
Aleppo, and told us about it in the old Boston Theatre. 
In the course of a fortnight, if I care to cross the 
water, I can see Mademoiselle Dejazet in the same 
parts I saw her in under Louis Philippe, and be 
charmed by the same grace and vivacity which de- 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 387 

lighted my grandmother (if she was in Paris, and went 
to see her in the part of Fanchon toute seule at the 
ThMre des Capucines) in the days when the great 
Napoleon was still only First Consul. 

The graveyard and the stage are pretty much the 
only places where you can expect to find your friends 
as you left them, five and twenty or fifty years ago. — 
I have noticed, I may add, that old theatre-goers bring 
back the past with their stories more vividly than men 
with any other experiences. There were two old 'New- 
Yorkers that I used to love to sit talking "vvith about 
the stage. One was a scholar and a writer of note ; 
a pleasant old gentleman, with the fresh cheek of an 
octogenarian Cupid. The other not less noted in his 
way, deep in local lore, large-brained, full-blooded, of 
somewhat perturbing and tumultuous presence. It 
was good to hear them talk of George Frederic Cooke, 
of Kean, and the lesser stars of those earlier constel- 
lations. Better still to breakfast with old Samuel 
Rogers, as some of my readers have done more than 
once, and hear him answer to the question who was 
the best actor he remembered, " I think, on the whole, 
Garrick." 

If we did but know how to question these charming 
old people before it is too late ! About ten years, 
more or less, after the generation in advance of our 
own has all died off, it occurs to us all at once, 
" There ! I can ask my old friend what he knows of 
that picture, which must be a Copley ; of that house 



388 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

and its legends about which there is such a mystery. 
He (or she) must know all about that." Too late! 
Too late ! 

Still, now and then one saves a reminiscence that 
means a good deal by means of a casual question. I 
asked the first of those old l!^ew- Yorkers the follow- 
ing question : " Who, on the whole, seemed to you the 
most considerable person you ever met ? " 

Now it must be remembered that this was a man 
who had lived in a city that calls itself the metropolis, 
one who had been a member of the State and the 
National Legislature, who had come in contact with 
men of letters and men of business, with politicians 
and members of all the professions, during a long and 
distinguished public career. I paused for his answer 
with no little curiosity. Would it be one of the great 
Ex-Presidents whose names were known to all the 
world ? Would it be the silver-tongued orator of 
Kentucky or the " Godlike " champion of the Consti- 
tution, our New England Jupiter Capitolinus ? Who 
would it be ? 

" Take it altogether," he answered, very deliber- 
ately, ^^ I should say Colonel Elisha Williams was the 
most notable personage that I have met with." 

— Colonel Elisha Williams ! And who might he 
be, forsooth ? A gentleman of singular distinction, 
you may be well assured, even though you are not 
familiar with his name ; but as I am not writing a bio- 
graphical dictionary, I shall leave it to my reader to 
find out who and what he was. 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 389 

— One would like to live long enough to witness 
certain things which will no doubt come to pass by 
and by. I remember that when one of our good kind- 
hearted old millionnaires was growing very infirm, his 
limbs failing him, and his trunk getting packed with 
the infirmities which mean that one is bound on a long 
journey, he said very simply and sweetly, "I don't 
care about living a great deal longer, but I should like 

to live long enough to find out how much old ■ 

(a many-millioned fellow-citizen) is worth." And 



without committing myself on the longevity-question I 
confess I should like to live long enough to see a few 
things happen that are like to come, sooner or later. 

I want to hold the skull of Abraham in my hand. 
They will go through the Cave of Macpelah at He- 
bron, I feel sure, in the course of a few generations at 
the furthest, and as Dr. Robinson knows of nothing 
which should lead us to question the correctness of 
the tradition which regards this as the place of sepul- 
ture of Abraham and the other patriarchs, there is no 
reason why we may not find his mummied body in per- 
fect preservation, if he was embalmed after the Egyp- 
tian fashion. I suppose the tomb of David will be 
explored by a commission in due time, and I should 
like to see the phrenological developments of that great 
king and divine singer and warm-blooded man. If, as 
seems probable, the anthropological section of society 
manages to get round the curse that protects the 
bones of Shakespeare, I should like to see the dome 



390 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

which rounded itself over his imperial brain. — Not 
that I am what is called a phrenologist, but I am 
curious as to the physical developments of these fel- 
low-mortals of mine, and a little in want of a sen- 
sation. 

I should like to live long enough to see the course 
of the Tiber turned, and the bottom of the river 
thoroughly dredged. I wonder if they would find 
the seven-branched golden candlestick brought from 
Jerusalem by Titus, and said to have been dropped 
from the Milvian bridge. I have often thought of 
going fishing for it somo year when I wanted a 
vacation, as some of my friends used to go to Ireland 
to fish for salmon. There was an attempt of that 
kind, I think, a few years ago. We all know how it 
looks well enough, from the figure of it on the Arch 
of Titus, but I should like to " heft " it in my own 
hand, and carry it home and shine it up (excuse my 
colloquialisms), and sit down and look at it, and think 
and think and think until the Temple of Solomon 
built up its walls of hewn stone and its roofs of 
cedar around me as noiselessly as when it rose, and 
" there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of 
iron heard in the house while it was in building." 

All this, you will remember. Beloved, is a digres- 
sion on my own account, and I return to the Old 
Master whom I left smiling at his own alteration of 
Shenstone's celebrated inscription. He now begins 
reading again : 



THE rOET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 391 

— I want it to be understood that I consider that 
a certain number of persons are at liberty to dislike 
me peremptorily, without showing cause, and that 
they give no offence whatever in so doing. 

If I did not cheerfully acquiesce in this sentiment 
towards myself on the part of others, I should not feel 
at liberty to indulge my own aversions. I try to 
cultivate a Christian feeling to all my fellow-creatures, 
but inasmuch as I must also respect truth and 
honesty, I confess to myself a certain number of in- 
alienable dislikes and prejudices, some of which may 
possibly be shared by others. Some of these are 
purely instinctive, for others I can assign a reason. 
Our likes and dislikes play so important a part in the 
Order of Things that it is well to see on what they 
are founded. 

There are persons I meet occasionally who are too 
intelligent by half for my liking. They know my 
thoughts beforehand, and tell me what I was going to 
say. Of course they are masters of all my knowledge, 
and a good deal besides ; have read all the books I 
have read, and in later editions ; have had all the ex- 
periences I have been through, and more too. In my 
private opinion every mother's son of them will lie at 
any time rather than confess ignorance. 

— I have a kind of dread, rather than hatred, of per- 
sons with a large excess of vitality; great feeders, 
great laughers, great story-tellers, who come sweeping 
over their company with a huge tidal wave of animal 



392 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

spirits and boisterous merriment. I have pretty good 
spirits myself, and enjoy a little mild pleasantry, but I 
am oppressed and extinguished by these great lusty, 
noisy creatures, and feel as if I were a mute at a fu- 
neral when they get into full blast. 

— I cannot get along much better with those droop- 
ing, languid people, whose vitality falls short as much 
as that of the others is in excess. I have not life 
enough for two ; I wish I had. It is not very enliv- 
ening to meet a fellow-creature whose expression and 
accents say, " You are the hair that breaks the camel's 
back of my endurance, you are the last drop that 
makes my cup of woe run over " ; persons whose heads 
drop on one side like those of toothless infants, whose 
voices recall the tones in which our old snuffling choir 
used to wail out the verses of 

" Life is the time to serve the Lord." 

— There is another style which does not captivate 
me. I recognize an attempt at the grand manner 
now and then, in persons who are well enough in 
their way, but of no particular importance, socially or 
otherwise. Some family tradition of wealth or dis- 
tinction is apt to be at the bottom of it, and it sur- 
vives all the advantages that used to set it off. I like 
family pride as well as my neighbors, and respect the 
high-born fellow-citizen whose progenitors have not 
vs^orked in their shirt-sleeves for the last two genera- 
tions full as much as I ought to. But grand-phre 
oblige; a person vfith a known grandfather is too 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 393 

distinguished to find it necessary to put on airs. The 
few Royal Princes I have happened to know were 
very easy people to get along with, and had not half 
the social knee-action I have often seen in the collapsed 
dowagers who lifted their eyebrows at me in my ear- 
lier years. 

— My heart does not warm as it should do towards 
the persons, not intimates, who are always too glad to 
see me when we meet by accident, and discover all at 
once that they have a vast deal to unbosom themselves 
of to me. 

— There is one blameless person whom I cannot 
love and have no excuse for hating. It is the innocent 
fellow-creature, otherwise inoffensive to me, whom I 
find I have involuntarily joined on turning a corner. 
I suppose the Mississippi, which was flowing quietly 
along, minding its own business, hates the Missouri 
for coming into it all at once with its muddy stream. 
I suppose the Missouri in like manner hates the Mis- 
sissippi for diluting with its limpid, but insipid current 
the rich reminiscences of the varied soils through 
which its own stream has wandered. I will not com- 
pare myself to the clear or the turbid current, but I 
will own that my heart sinks when I find all of a sud- 
den I am in for a corner confluence, and I cease lov- 
ing my neighbor as myself until 1 can get away from 
him. 

— These antipathies are at least weaknesses ; they 
may be sins in the eye of the Recording Angel. I 

17* 



394 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

often reproach myself with my wrong-doings. I 
should like sometimes to thank Heaven for saving 
me from some kinds of transgression, and even for 
granting me some qualities that if I dared I should be 
disposed to call virtues. I should do so, I suppose, 
if I did not remember the story of the Pharisee. 
That ought not to hinder me. The parable was told 
to illustrate a single virtue, humility, and the most 
unwarranted inferences have been drawn from it 
as to the whole character of the two parties. It 
seems not at all unlikely, but rather probable, that the 
Pharisee was a fairer dealer, a better husband, and a 
more charitable person than the Publican, whose name 
has come down to us " linked with one virtue," but 
who may have been guilty, for aught that appears to 
the contrary, of " a thousand crimes." Remember 
how we limit the application of other parables. The 
lord, it will be recollected, commended the unjust 
steward because he had done wisely. His shrewdness 
was held up as an example, but after all he was a 
miserable swindler, and deserved the State-prison as 
much as many of our financial operators. The para- 
ble of the Pharisee and the Publican is a perpetual 
warning against spiritual pride. But it must not 
frighten any one of us out of being thankful that he 
is not, like this or that neighbor, under bondage to 
strong drink or opium, that he is not an Erie-Railroad 
Manager, and that his head rests in virtuous calm on 
his own pillow. If he prays in the morning to be 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 395 

kept out of temptation as well as for his daily bread, 
shall he not return thanks at night that he has not 
fallen into sin as well as that his stomach has been 
filled ? I do not think the poor Pharisee has ever 
had fair play, and I am afraid a good many people sin 
with the comforting, half-latent intention of smiting 
their breasts afterwards and repeating the prayer of the 

Publican. 

(Sensation.) 

This little movement which I have thus indicated 
seemed to give the Master new confidence in his 
audience. He turned over several pages until he 
came to a part of the interleaved volume where we 
could all see he had written in a passage of new 
matter in red inh as of special interest. 

— I told you, he said, in Latin, and I repeat it in 
English, that I have freed my soul in these pages, — I 
have spoken my mind. I have read you a few extracts, 
most of them of rather slight texture, and some of 
them, you perhaps thought, whimsical. But I meant, 
if I thought you were in the right mood for listening 
to it, to read you some paragraphs which give in small 
compass the pith, the marrow, of all that my expe- 
rience has taught me. Life is a fatal complaint, and 
an eminently contagious one. I took it early, as we 
all do, and have treated it all along with the best pal- 
liatives I could get hold of, inasmuch as I could find 
no radical cure for its evils, and have so far managed 
to keep pretty comfortable under it. 



396 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

It is a great thing for a man to put the whole mean- 
ing of his life into a few paragraphs, if he does it so 
that others can make anything out of it. If he con- 
veys his wisdom after the fashion of the old alchemists, 
he may as well let it alone. He must talk in very 
plain words, and that is what I have done. You want 
to know what a certain number of scores of years have 
taught me that I think best worth telling. If I had 
half a dozen square inches of paper, and one penftd of 
ink, and five minutes to use them in for the instruction 
of those who come after me, what should I put down 
in writing ? That is the question. 

Perhaps I should be wiser if I refused to attempt 
any such brief statement of the most valuable lesson 
that life has taught me. I am by no means sure that 
I had not better draw my pen through the page that 
holds the quintessence of my vital experiences, and 
leave those who wish to know what it is to distil it 
themselves from my many printed pages. But I have 
excited your curiosity, and I see that you are impatient 
to hear what the wisdom, or the folly, it may be, of a 
life shows for, when it is crowded into a few lines as 
the fragrance of a gardenfiil of roses is concentrated in 
a few drops of perfume. 

— By this time I confess I was myself a little 
excited. What was he going to tell us ? The Young 
Astronomer looked upon him with an eye as clear and 
steady and brilliant as the evening star, but I could 
see that he too was a little nervous, wondering what 
would come next. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 397 

The Old Master adjusted his large round spectacles, 
and began : 

— It has cost me fifty years to find my place in the 
Order of Things. I had explored all the sciences ; I had 
studied the literature of all ages ; I had travelled in 
many lands ; I had learned how to follow the working 
of thought in men and of sentiment and instinct in 
women. I had examined for myself all the religions 
that could make out any claim for themselves. I had 
fasted and prayed with the monks of a lonely convent ; 
I had mingled with the crowds that shouted glory at 
camp-meetings ; I had listened to the threats of Cal- 
vinists and the promises of Universalists ; I had been 
a devout attendant on a Jewish Synagogue ; I was in 
correspondence with an intelligent Buddhist; and I 
met frequently with the inner circle of Rationalists, 
who believed in the persistence of Force, and the iden- 
tity of alimentary substances with virtue, and were 
reconstructing the universe on this basis, with absolute 
exclusion of all Supernumeraries. In these pursuits I 
had passed the larger part of my half-century of exist- 
ence, as yet with little satisfaction. It was on the 
morning of my fiftieth birthday that the solution of the 
great problem I had sought so long came to me as a 
simple formula, with a few grand but obvious infer- 
ences. I will repeat the substance of this final intui- 
tion : 

The one central fact in the Order of Things which 
solves all questions is — 



398 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

At this moment we were interrupted by a knock at 
the Master's door. It was most inopportune, for he 
was on the point of the great disclosure, but common 
politeness compelled him to answer it, and as the step 
which we had heard was that of one of the softer- 
footed sex, he chose to rise from his chair and admit 
his visitor. 

This visitor was our Landlady. She was dressed 
with more than usual nicety, and her countenance 
showed clearly that she came charged with an impor- 
tant communication. 

— I did n't know there was company with you, — 
said the Landlady, — but it 's jest as well. I 've got 
something to tell my boarders that I don't want to tell 
them, and if I must do it, I may as well tell you all at 
once as one to a time. I 'm a going to give up keep- 
ing boarders at the end of this year, — I mean come 
the end of December. 

She took out a white handkerchief, at hand in ex- 
pectation of what was to happen, and pressed it to her 
eyes. There was an interval of silence. The Master 
closed his book and laid it on the table. The Young 
Astronomer did not look as much surprised as I should 
have expected. I was completely taken aback, — I 
had not thought of such a sudden breaking up of our 
little circle. 

When the Landlady had recovered her composure, 
she began again : 

The Lady that 's been so long with me is going to a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 399 

house of her own, — one she has bought back again, 
for it used to belong to her folks. It 's a beautiful 
house, and the sun shines in at the front windows all 
day long. She 's going to be wealthy again, but it 
doos n't make any difference in her ways. I 've had 
boarders complain when I was doing as well as I 
knowed how for them, but I never heerd a word 
from her that was n't as pleasant as if she 'd been 
talking to the Governor's lady. I 've knowed what it 
was to have women-boarders that find fault, — there 's 
some of 'em would quarrel with me and everybody at 
my table ; they would quarrel with the Angel Gabriel 
if he lived in the house with 'em, and scold at him 
and tell him he was always dropping his feathers 
round, if they could n't find anything else to bring up 
against him. 

Two other boarders of mine has given me notice 
that they was expecting to leave come the first of 
January. I could fill up their places easy enough, for 
ever since that first book was wrote that called peo- 
ple's attention to my boarding-house, I 've had more 
wanting to come than I Avanted to keep. 

But I 'm getting along in life, and I ain't quite so 
rugged as I used to be. My daughter is well settled 
and my son is making his own living. I 've done a 
good deal of hard work in my time, and I feel as 
if I had a right to a little rest. There 's nobody 
knows what a woman that has the charge of a family 
goes through, but God Almighty that made her. I Ve 



400 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

done my best for them that I loved, and for them that 
was under my roof. My husband and my children 
was well cared for when they lived, and he and them 
little ones that I buried has white marble head-stones 
and foot-stones, and an iron fence round the lot, and a 
place left for me betwixt him and the .... 

Some has always been good to me, — some has made 
it a little of a strain to me to get along. When a wo- 
man's back aches with overworking herself to keep her 
house in shape, and a dozen mouths are opening at 
her three times a day, like them little young birds that 
split their heads open so you can a'most see into their 
empty stomachs, and one wants this and another 
wants that, and provisions is dear and rent is high, 
and nobody to look to, — then a sharp word cuts, I 
tell you, and a hard look goes right to your heart. 
I 've seen a boarder make a face at what I set before 
him, when I had tried to suit him jest as well as I 
knew how, and I have n't cared to eat a thing myself 
all the rest of that day, and I 've laid awake without 
a wink of sleep all night. And then when you come 
down the next morning all the boarders stare at you 
and wonder what makes you so low-spirited, and why 
you don't look as happy and talk as cheerful as one of 
them rich ladies that has dinner-parties, where they 've 
nothing to do but give a few orders, and somebody 
comes and cooks their dinner, and somebody else 
comes and puts flowers on the table, and a lot of men 
dressed up like ministers come and wait on everybody, 
as attentive as undertakers at a funeral. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 401 

And that reminds me to tell you that I 'm a going 
to live with my daughter. Her husband 's a very nice 
man, and when he is n't following a corpse, he 's as 
good company as if he was a member of the city 
council. My son, he 's a going into business with the 
old Doctor he studied with, and he 's a going to board 
with me at my daughter's for a while, — I suppose he '11 
be getting a wife before long. [This with a pointed 
look at our young friend, the Astronomer.] 

It is n't but a little while longer that we are going 
to be together, and I want to say to you gentlemen, as 
I mean to say to the others and as I have said to our 
two ladies, that I feel more obligated to you for the 
way you Ve treated me than I know very well how to 
put into words. Boarders sometimes expect too much 
of the ladies that provides for them. Some days the 
meals are better than other days ; it can't help being 
so. Sometimes the provision-market is n't well sup- 
plied, sometimes the fire in the cooking-stove does n't 
burn so well as it does other days ; sometimes the 
cook isn't so lucky as she might be. And there is 
boarders who is always laying in wait for the days 
when the meals is not quite so good as they commonly 
be, to pick a quarrel with the one that is trying to 
serve them so as that they shall be satisfied. But 
you 've all been good and kind to me. I suppose I 'm 
not quite so spry and quick-sighted as I was a dozen 
years ago, when my boarder wrote that first book so 
many have asked me about. But now I 'm going to 



402 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

stop taking boarders. I don't believe you '11 think 
much about what I did n't do, — because I could n't, 

— but remember that at any rate I tried honestly to 
serve you. I hope God will bless all that set at my 
table, old and young, rich and poor, merried and 
single, and single that hopes soon to be merried. My 
husband that 's dead and gone always believed that 
we all get to heaven sooner or later, — and sence I 've 
grown older and buried so many that I 've loved I 've 
come to feel that perhaps I should meet all of them 
that I 've known here — or at least as many of 'em as 
I wanted to — in a better world. And though I don't 
calculate there is any boarding-houses in heaven, I 
hope I shall some time or other meet them that has set 
round my table one year after another, all together, 
where there is no fault-finding with the food and no 
occasion for it, — and if I do meet them and you there 

— or anywhere, — if there is anything I can do for 
you .... 

.... Poor dear soul ! Her ideas had got a little 
mixed, and her heart was overflowing, and the white 
handkerchief closed the scene with its timely and 
greatly needed service. 

— What a pity, I have often thought, that she came 
in just at that precise moment ! For the Old Master 
was on the point of telling us, and through one of us 
the reading world, — I mean that fraction of it which 
has reached this point of the record, — at any rate, of 
telling you. Beloved, through my pen, his solution of 



THE POET AT THE BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 403 

a great problem we all have to deal with. We were 
some weeks longer together, but he never offered to 
continue his reading. At length I ventured to give 
him a hint that our young friend and myself would 
both of us be greatly gratified if he would begin read- 
ing from his unpublished page where he had left off. 

— No, sir, — he said, — better not, better not. That 
which means so much to me, the writer, might be a dis- 
appointment, or at least a puzzle, to you, the listener. 
Besides, if you 11 take my printed book and be at the 
trouble of thinking over what it says, and put that 
with what you 've heard me say, and then make those 
comments and reflections which will be suggested to a 
mind in so many respects like mine as is your own, — 
excuse my good opinion of myself, — (It is a high 
compliment to me, I replied), you will perhaps find you 
have the elements of the formula and its consequences 
which I was about to read you. It 's quite as well to 
crack your own filberts as to borrow the use of other 
people's teeth. I think we will wait awhile before we 
pour out the Elixir Vitce, 

— To tell the honest truth, I suspect the Master 
has found out that his formula does not hold water 
quite so perfectly as he was thinking, so long as he 
kept it to himself, and never thought of imparting it 
to anybody else. The very minute a thought is threat- 
ened with publicity it seems to shrink towards medi- 
ocrity, as I have noticed that a great pumpkin, the 
wonder of a village, seemed to lose at least a third of 



404 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

its dimensions between the field where it grew and the 
cattle-show fair-table, where it took its place with other 
enormous pumpkins from other wondering villages. 
But however that may be, I shall always regret that I 
had not the opportunity of judging for myself how 
completely the Master's formula, which, for him, at 
least, seemed to have solved the great problem, would 
have accomplished that desirable end for me. 

The Landlady's announcement of her intention to 
give up keeping boarders was heard with regret by all 
who met around her table. The Member of the 
Haouse inquired of me whether I could tell him if the 
Lamb Tahvern was kept well abaout these times. He 
knew that members from his place used to stop there, 
but he had n't heerd much abaout it of late years. — 
I had to inform him that that fold of rural innocence 
had long ceased offering its hospitalities to the legislar 
tive flock. He found refuge at last, I have learned, in 
a great public house in the northern section of the 
city, where, as he said, the folks all went up stairs in 
a rat-trap, and the last I heard of him was looking out 
of his somewhat elevated attic-window in a northwest- 
erly direction in hopes that he might perhaps get a 
sight of the Grand Monadnock, a mountain in New 
Hampshire which I have myself seen from the top of 
Bunker Hill Monument. 

The Member of the Haouse seems to have been 
more in a hurry to find a new resting-place than the 
other boarders. By the first of January, however^ 



THE POET AT THE BKEAKF AST-TABLE. 405 

our whole company was scattered, never to meet again 
around the board where we had been so long together. 

The Lady moved to the house where she had passed 
many of her prosperous years. It had been occupied 
by a rich family who had taken it nearly as it stood, 
and as the pictures had been dusted regularly, and the 
books had never been handled, she found everything 
in many respects as she had left it, and in some points 
improved, for the rich people did not know what else 
to do, and so they spent money without stint on their 
house and its adornments, by all of which she could 
not help profiting. I do not choose to give the street 
and number of the house where she lives, but a great 
many poor people know very well where it is, and 
as a matter of course the rich ones roll up to her door 
in their carriages by the dozen every fine Monday 
while anybody is in town. 

It is whispered that our two young folks are to be 
married before another season, and that the Lady has 
asked them to come and stay with her for a while. 
Our Scheherazade is to write no more stories. It is 
astonishing to see what a change for the better in 
her aspect a few weeks of brain-rest and heart's ease 
have wrought in her. I doubt very much whether 
she ever returns to literary labor. The work itself 
was almost heart-breaking, but the eiFect upon her of 
the sneers and cynical insolences of the literary rough 
who came at her in mask and brass knuckles was to 
give her what I fear will be a lifelong disgust against 



406 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

any writing for the public, especially in any of the 
periodicals. I am not sorry that she should stop 
writing, but I am sorry that she should have been si- 
lenced in such a rude way. I doubt, too, whether the 
young Astronomer will pass the rest of his life in hunt- 
ing for comets and planets. I think he has found an 
attraction that will call him down from the celestial 
luminaries to a light not less pure and far less remote. 
And I am inclined to believe that the best answer to 
many of those questions which have haunted him and 
found expression in his verse will be reached by a 
very different channel from that of lonely contempla- 
tion, — the duties, the cares, the responsible realities 
of a life drawn out of itself by the power of newly 
awakened instincts and affections. The double star 
was prophetic, — I thought it would be. 

The Register of Deeds is understood to have been 
very handsomely treated by the boarder who owes her 
good fortune to his sagacity and activity. He has en- 
gaged apartments at a very genteel boarding-house not 
far from the one where we have all been living. The 
Salesman found it a simple matter to transfer himself 
to an establishment over the way ; he had very little 
to move, and required very small accommodations. 

The Capitalist, however, seems to have felt it im- 
possible to move without ridding himself of a part at 
least of his encumbrances. The community was star, 
tied by the announcement that a citizen who did not 
wish his name to be known had made a free gift of a 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 407 

large sum of money — it was in tens of thousands — ■ 
to an institution of long standing and high character 
in the city of which he was a quiet resident. The 
source of such a gift could not long be kept secret. 
It was our economical, not to say parsimonious Capi- 
talist who had done this noble act, and the poor man 
had to skulk through back streets and keep out of 
sight, as if he were a show character in a travelling 
caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his liberal- 
ity, which met him on every hand and put him fairly 
out of countenance. 

That Boy has gone, in virtue of a special invitation, 
to make a visit of indefinite length at the house of the 
father of the older boy, whom we know by the name 
of Johnny. Of course he is having a good time, for 
Johnny's father is fall of fun, and tells first-rate sto- 
ries, and if neither of the boys gets his brains kicked 
out by the pony, or blows himself up with gimpowder, 
or breaks through the ice and gets drowned, they will 
have a fine time of it this winter. 

The Scarabee could not bear to remove his collec- 
tions, and the Old Master was equally unwilling to dis- 
turb his books. It was arranged, therefore, that they 
should keep their apartments until the new tenant 
should come into the house, when, if they were satis- 
fied with her management, they would continue as her 
boarders. 

The last time I saw the Scarabee he was still at work 
on the melo'e question. He expressed himself very pleas- 



408 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

antly towards all of us, his fellow-boarders, and spoke 
of the kindness and consideration with which the Land- 
lady had treated him when he had been straitened at 
times for want of means. Especially he seemed to be 
interested in our young couple who were soon to be 
united. His tired old eyes glistened as he asked about 
them, — could it be that their little romance recalled 
some early vision of his own ? However that may be, 
he got up presently and went to a little box in which, 
as he said, he kept some choice specimens. He brought 
to me in his hand something which glittered. It was 
an exquisite diamond beetle. 

— If you could get that to her, — he said, — they 
tell me that ladies sometimes wear them in their hair. 
If they are out of fashion, she can keep it till after 
they 're married, and then perhaps after a while there 
may be — you know — you know what I mean — 
there may be — larvce, that 's what I 'm thinking there 
may be, and they '11 like to look at it. 

— As he got out the word larvce, a faint sense of 
the ridiculous seemed to take hold of the Scarabee, 
and for the first and only time during my acquaintance 
with him a slight attempt at a smile showed itself on 
his features. It was barely perceptible and gone al- 
most as soon as seen, yet I am pleased to put it on 
record that on one occasion at least in his life the 
Scarabee smiled. 

The Old Master keeps adding notes and reflections 
and new suggestions to his interleaved volume, but I 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 409 

doubt if he ever gives them to the public. The study 
he has proposed to himself does not grow easier the 
longer it is pursued. The whole Order of Things can 
hardly be completely unravelled in any single person's 
lifetime, and I suspect he will have to adjourn the 
final stage of his investigations to that more luminous 
realm where the Landlady hopes to rejoin the company 
of boarders who are nevermore to meet around her 
cheerfal and well-ordered table. 

The curtain has now fallen, and I show myself a 
moment before it to thank my audience and say fare- 
well. The second comer is commonly less welcome 
than the first, and the third makes but a rash venture. 
I hope I have not wholly disappointed those who have 
been so kind to my predecessors. 

To you, Beloved, who have never failed to cut the 
leases which hold my record, who have never nodded 
over its pages, who have never hesitated in your alle- 
giance, who have greeted me with unfailing smiles 
and part from me with unfeigned regrets, to you I 
look my last adieu as I bow myself out of sight, 
trusting my poor efforts to your always kind remem- 
brance. 



410 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES; 

AUTOCRAT — PROFESSOR — POET. 

AT A BOOKSTORE. 

Anno Domini 1972. 

A CRAZY bookcase, placed before 
A low-price dealer's open door ; 
Therein arrayed in broken rows 
A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, 
The homeless vagrants, waifs and strays 
Whose low estate this line betrays 
(Set forth the lesser birds to lime) 

YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOOKS, 1 DIME! 

Ho ! dealer ; for its motto's sake 

This scarecrow from the shelf I take ; 

Three starveling volumes bound in one, 

Its covers warping in the sun. 

Methinks it hath a musty smell, 

I like^its flavor none too well. 

But Yorick's brain was far from dull, 

Though Hamlet pah ! 'd, and dropped his skull. 

Why, here comes rain ! The sky grows dark, — 

Was that the roll of thunder ? Hark ! 

The shop affords a safe retreat, 

A chair extends its welcome seat, 

The tradesman has a civil look 

(I've paid, impromptu, for my book), 

The clouds portend a sudden shower, — 

I '11 read my purchase for an hour. 



THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 411 

What have I rescued from the shelf ? 
A Bos well, writing out himself! 
For though he changes dress and name, 
The man beneath is still the same, 
Laughing or sad, by fits and starts. 
One actor in a dozen parts, 
And whatsoe'er the mask may be, 
The voice assures us. This is he. 

I say not this to cry him down ; 
I find my Shakespeare in his clown, 
His rogues the self-same parent own; 
Nay ! Satan talks in Milton's tone ! 
Where'er the ocean inlet strays, 
The salt sea wave its source betrays. 
Where'er the queen of summer blows, 
She tells tlie zephyr, " I 'm the rose I '* 

And his is not the playwright's page ; 
His table does not ape the stage; 
What matter if the figures seen 
Are only shadows on a screen, 
He finds in them his lurking thought, 
And on their lips the words he sought, 
Like one who sits before the keys 
And plays a tune himself to please. 

And was he noted in his day ? 

Eead, flattered, honored ? Who shall say ? 

Poor wreck of time the wave has cast 

To find a peaceful shore at last. 

Once glorying in thy gilded name 

And freighted deep with hopes of fame. 

Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, 

The first for many a long, long year ! 



412 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

For be it more or less of art 

That veils the lowliest human heart 

Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, 

Where pity's tender tribute flows, 

Where love has lit its fragrant fire, 

And sorrow quenched its vain desire, 

For me the altar is divine, 

Its flame, its ashes, — all are mine ! 

And thou, my brother, as I look 
And see thee pictured in thy book, 
Thy years on every page confessed 
In shadows lengthening from the west. 
Thy glance that wanders, as it sought 
Some freshly opening flower of thought, 
Thy hopeful nature, light and free, 
I start to find myself in thee ! 

• • • • • 

Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn 
In leather jerkin stained and torn, 
Whose talk has filled my idle hour 
And made me half forget the shower, 
I '11 do at least as much for you, 
Your coat I '11 patch, your gilt renew, 
Read you — perhaps — some other time. 
Not bad, my bargain ! Price one dime I 



ODEX. 



A. 



Act to make the poor rich by mak- 
ing the rich poorer, 3. 

Actors change less than other peo- 
ple, 386. 

"Addison's Disease," an interest- 
ing malady, 78 et seq. 

Affinities, elective, 151, 152, 

Alchemy, old books of, 31, 32. 

" Amatooes," the Scarabee has no 
fear of, 293. 

Americans, all cuckoos ; make 
their home in other birds' nests, 
12. 

Angelina's verses, how to treat, 
178. 

Ankle, wonderful effects of break- 
ing a bone in the, 114. 

Articulated sounds, fascination of 
54. 

Aunt Tabitha (poem), 102. 

Authors, compliments to, 243. 



B. 



Baby's fingers, 59. 

Bambino, the, in the little church, 
362. 

Batrachian reservoir (frog-pond 
in vulgar speech), the palladium 
of our city, 369. 

Beehive, the giant (a planing- 
mill), 382. 

Biography, penalties of being its 
subject, 191 ei seq. 

Boarding-houses, the tenants of, 
287. 

Boarding-house keepers, trials of, 
400 et seq. 

Body, animal, anticipates our con- 
trivances, 378. 

Book-advertisement, trap to ob- 
tain, ,354. 

Book, the Master speaks about his, 



242 ; the Master's; he reads from 
it, 260, 356, 377. 

Books, old, in the attic of the old 
house, 30; three old, taken for 
their covers, 251 ; what is the use 
of making, 254; sent by their 
authors, — what is done with them, 
353 ; like leaky boats on a sea of 
wisdom, 356. 

Bouquet, the Christmas, 65. 

Bronzed skin, cutis cenea, 78 et seq. 
137. 

Boy, That, checks the flow of con- 
versation, 73. 

Bumblebee, the sybarite that lives 
on, 90. 

Bunker HiU Monument, 174; the 
man of, 176, 194 ; questions to ask 
him, 195 et seq. 

BuNYAN, John, says Christians are 
never easy, 356. 



0. 



Calvin, Mr. Bancroft on, 216. 
Canute, King, 217, 314, 315. 
Catullus, his story of the Eoman 

cockney who said hinsidias for 

insidias, 380. 
Changes during a single generation, 

386. 
Character, sudden changes of, 

359. 
Children, truth-tellers, 59. 
" Cirri and JVebulce,^^ 168. 
City house, a sanatorium, 328. 
Clergymen, sad-faced, 20. 
Cockney, the Eoman, who misused 

the letter h, 380. 
Coincidences of thought and ex- 
pression, 379. 
"Common, the," 368; a dangerous 

path in, 370. 
Common virtues of humanity not to 



414 



INDEX. 



be confiscated to the use of any 

one creed, 360, 

COMPLEMENTAKY COlorS, 163. 

CoNVEKSATiON, an astronomical and 

sentimental, 370 et seq. 
"Conversationists," 52. 
Coram, Captain, 200. 
Correspondent, my interesting 

one, 186. 
CowPER, his mental neuralgia, 119. 
Creator, his divinest work, 123. 
Criticism, stinging, 178; private 

and confidential, 182. 



D. 



Dancing-master, the, and his 
daughters, 113. 

Darwinian Theory, the, 212. 

"Darwinism," source of interest 
in, 357. 

Democritus and Heraclitus, their 
different views of a certain source 
of happiness, 320. 

Dermesies lardarius^ 109. 

Devout disposition and weak con- 
stitution often go together, accord- 
ing to Mr. Galton, 356. 

Doctors, youngs 143. 

Dynasty, the talking, 308 ; hard on 
Americans, 311. 

Double star, the, 86, 163, 164, 372, 
373, 406. 



E. 



Egg, the Creator's private studio, 
124. 

"Elm, the Great," 368. 
Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table 

Series, 410. 
Epizoic literature, 179. 
Equation, an eye for an, 123. 
Everett, Edward, 33. 
Experience, quintessence of the 

Old Master's, 396. 
Experiment, the Master's, 204 et 

seq. 

F. 

Fact, the one central in the Order 

of Things, 397, 402. 
Fantasia (poem), 71. 



FisK, Rev. Thaddeus, of West 

Cambridge, 17. 
Forgotten, pleasure of being, 188 

et seq. 
Fossils, make-believes according 

to Mr. Gosse, 211. 
Foster, Rev. John, 17. 
Frenchman, Lhe eccentric, 264. 



G. 



Galton, Mr., on hereditaiy genius, 

356. 
Gambrel-roofed House, the, 11 

et seq. 
Gentlemen, differences in, 238. 
Ghosts, do not believe in them, but 

are afraid of them, 385. 
Goldenrod, Mrs. Midas, 64. 
Good Samaritan, the, question 

concerning, 360. 



H. 

Hall, Bishop, on the election of a 

wife, 357. 
Harris, Rev. Thaddeus Mason, 

17. 
Hedericus, a gentlemanly quarto, 

246. 
Heritable guilt, the doctrine of, 

314. 
HoLYOKE, President, 35. 
Homer, a ringing line of his, 55. 
Homer, Rev. Jonathan, 17. 
Homesick in heaven (poem), 37. 
Horace asks a modern slang ques- 
tion, 380. 
House-flies mysterious creatures, 

288. 
Human fruit, the best raised under 

glass, 326. 
Human subspecies, a coarse-fibred 

one, 322. 
Humanity more important than 

any one belief, 384. 



I. 



Ideas often improve by transplan- 
tation, 171. 

Instincts, successive ripening o^ 
194. 



INDEX. 



415 



Intellects, one story, two story, 

tiiree story, 50. 
" Interviewing " one's self, 1. 



J. 



Japanese image for acupuncture, 
143. 

Jests distress some people, 289. 

Jeremy Taylor's discourse, etc., 
224. 

"Johnny" makes his appearance 
at table, 329. 

Johnson, Dr., his estimate of 
scientific men, 309. 

"J. A." (poem.) 

Judas, has been whitewashed late- 
ly, 241. 

Justice, an algebraic ic, 317. 



K. 

Keats, John, 116. 
Kellogg, Eev. Elijah, 18. 



L. 



Laboring classes and idle people. 

351. 
Lamb tavern, the Member inquires 

aboixt the, 404. 
Landlady's daughter, 44. 
Landlady's daughter's children, 

44. 
Langdon, President, 33. 
Lawyers, ministers, and doctors, 

144 et seq. 
Letter, the lady's, 219. 
Library, the Master's, 245 et seq. 
Life a fatal complaint, and con- 
tagious, 395. 
Likes and dislikes, philosophy of, 

83. 
Limitations, human, not to be 

transferred to the Infinite, 319. 
Literary roughs, their brass 

knuckles. 322, 405. 
London club, meeting celebrities 

at, 121. 
LoVE-cure, the, 819. 



M. 

Manhood, Oriental and Occidental, 
316. 

Master's book, the, meaning of, 
375. 

Mastigopliori, the, 321. 

" Matchless Mitchel," and the 
Zend Avesta, 3S2, 383. 

"Mbongaparty," General, 18. 

Meloe, laws of, 87. 

Mental ballast, the Master says he 
rises higher after throwing it over, 
377. 

Mental hemiplegia, 19. 

Mrs. Midas Goldenrod, 345 et 
seq. 

Millionnaires cannot be extermi- 
nated, 5. 

Milton, curious passage from Par- 
adise Lost, 108. 

Minds move like chess-men, 258. 

Misers, my study of, 299 et seq. 

MooN-hoax, 161." 

Moon, photographs 'of, thought to 
have been taken from a peeled 
orange, 161 ; has been thought to 
act as a mirror, showing seas and 
shores of the earth, 161. 

Moral averages, 260. 

" Moral Teratology," a poten- 
tial essay, 264. 

Music, the Old JMaster's fancies 
about, 72; Florence Nightingale's 
saying about, ibid. 



N. 



"Natural Man," the, 274. 

Nature, study of, its difficulties, 
361. 

"Nature," treated as a distinct 
entity, 358 ; view of, like that once 
taken of disease, ibid. 

New York, streets made by cow- 
paths, 381. 

New-Yorkers, t-^o old ones and 
their talk about actors, 387. 

Nebular theory, the, 210. 

Nightingale. Florence, her say- 
ing about music, 72. 

Noblemen, natural, 324. 

Non-clerical minds, hopeful for 
the future of the race, 302. 



416 



INDEX. 



0. 



Observatory, visit to, 86, 151, 154; 

description of, 155. 
Old People almost wish to lose 

their blessings for the pleasure of 

remembering them, 385. 
Old People, monsters to little 

ones, 16. 
Old People, we want to question 

them when it is too late, 387. 
Order of Things, the Old Master's 

specialty, 48. 
ORGAN-blower and organ-player, 

351. 
Osgood, Eev. David, 17. 



Pearson, Master Edward, 21. 
Pearson, Rev. Eliphalet, 15. 

Pediculus melittcB, 87. 

Persons whom the Old Master dis- 
likes, 391. 

Pharisee, the, and the Publican, 
394. 

Phrases, pretty, the poet loves 
them, 54. 

Places, change of, at the table, 275. 

Poem, is it hard work to write one ? 
111. 

Poem, one good one makes a name 
live, 131. 

Poet, the, finds himself wonderfully 
like other people, 13. 

Poet, the, consults Dr. Benjamin, 75. 

Poet, like the traveller at a rail- 
way-station, 127. 

Poet, the Master thinks he has 
some of his elements, but is not 
one, 128. 

Poetry, a young man's maiden ef- 
fort, 184. 

Poets, dark-meat and white-meat, 
51. 

Poets, privileged persons, 115 et 
seq. ; the Old Master discourses on, 
118; life too vivid to them, 125. 

Poets who do not write verses the 
best talkers, 118. 

Political firebugs, 3. 

Pope, his lines to Addison on medals, 
130. 

Popgun, the, 73, 110, 131, 172, 
276 et seq. 



Poppies growing among the corn 

suggest the same moral reflection 

to two writers, 381. 
Power, we have no respect for as 

such, 317. 
Prince, Thomas, his history of 

New England, 142. 
Private property in thought hard 

to get and to keep, 356. 



E. 



Reader, one good faithful, 49. 
Red Republic of letters, the, 12. 
Regalia, so called, my delight in, 

321. 
Religion, every, presupposes its 

own elements as existing in those 

to whom it is addressed, 215. 
Rhymes, the list of good ones, short, 

85. 
Ribbon in button-hole pleases the 

author, 322. 
RiGORiSTS, mellowing, pleasanter 

than tightening liberals, 19. 
Rise of man instead of fall of man, 

213. 



S. 



Salesman, the, 70, 109. 

Sanitary map of every State 
wanted, 329. 

School-Ma'am, the, a former 
boarder, 333, 350. 

Sceptic, one man in a dozen ought 
to be, 241. 

" Science," good if common-sense 
goes with it, 140 et seq. 

Scientific study of man most diffi- 
cult branch of knowledge, 360. 

Self-depreciation not without 
pleasure, 285. 

Sentiment, poets given to indulg- 
ing in, 158. 

"Sentimentality" better than 
cynicism, 159. 

Shakespeare, William, domestic 
trial of, 10. 

Shenstone's famous epitaph (al- 
tered), 385. 

Shirley, James, 129. 

Side-shows, my acquaintance with, 
268. 



INDEX. 



417 



Sin, like disease, a vital process, 359. 
Slngeb, triumphs of the, 132. 
Slacked lime, image for a delicate 

complexion, 381. 
Smith, Rev. Isaac, 18. 
Social distinctions, people touchy 

about, 67. 
Sparrows, English, missionaries of 

ablution, 369. 
Specialists like coral insects, 92. 
Spider, the Scarabee's, 286 et seq. 
Spiritual pathology as a branch 

of study, 359. 
" Squirt," a college boy's term, 

295. 
Stearks, Eev. Charles, 17. 
Stereoscope shoAvs objects as large 

as the reality, 257. 
STORY-telling and shirt-sewing, 351. 
Struldbrugs, 328. 
Students, names of three on the 

window-pane of the Old House, 

29. 
Study, a scholar's like a caddice- 

worm's shell,- 247. 



T. 



Table, our, diagram of its arrange- 
ment, 71. 

Talk about talking, 104. 

Talkers, poets who never write 
verses the best, 111. 

Talkers, three famous, 308. 

Talking to find out one's self, 3. 

Tattooing with the belief of our 
tribe while we are in our cradles, 
384. 

Telescope, Herschel's great, 257. 

Teratology, the science of "mon- 
strosities," 261 et seq. 

The Young Astronomer, 68, 86, 
122, 160, 166, 187, 236, 237, 275, 
276 et seq. ; 363, 364 et seq. ; 370 
et seq. ; 398, 405- 

That Boy, 8, 73, 83, 86, 95, 96, 
107, 110, 131, 155, 172, 239, 320, 
407. 

The Capitalist, 46, 153, 155, 161, 
177, 296, 297, 301; rids himself of 
an encumbrance, 406. 

The young Doctor (B. Franklin), 
44, 74 et seq. ; 136, 155, 297. 

The Young Girl, " Our Schehera- 
zade," 61, 86, 97 et seq. ; 106, 150, 



153, 162, 172, 275, 276, 303, 320, 

349, 367, 370 et seq. ; 405. 
The Lady, 63, 66, 100, 106, 159, 

219, 306, 319; is to change her 

condition, 341 et seq. ; 352, 398, 

405. 
The Landlady. 43, 163, 169, 201, 

230, 238, 270, 296, 302, 330, 334, 

339 et seq. ; 350, 363, 398 et seq. 
The " Man op Letters," so called, 

60, 115, 155, 157, 167, 177 et seq. ; 

becomes a public benefactor, 238. 
The Member of the Haouse, 1 et 

seq.; 7, 108, 155, 157, 172, 177, 

325, 328, 404. 
The Old Master (Magister Ar~ 

Hum), 1, 47, 48, 72, 82 t't seq. ; 84, 

92 et seq. ; 104, 111 et seq. ; 118, 

132, 139 et seq. ; 172, 204 et seq ; 

241, 244 et seq. ; 260 et seq. ; 269, 

279 et seq. ; b06, 352 et seq ; 373 

et seq. ; 398, 408, 409 et seq. 
The Register of Dueds, 70, 109, 

155, 177, 196 et seq.; 329, 439 et 

seq. ; 406. 
The Salesman, 70, 109, 155, 177, 

240. 
The Scarabee, 49, 56, 87 et seq. ; 

109, 172, 279 et seq. ; 290 et seq. ; 

328, 407, 408. 
"The Boys," 133. 
Theology, must be studied through 

anthropology, 214. 
Thief, the little crippled one in 

Newgate, 266. 
Things the writer would like to 

live long enough to see, 389. 
Thinking-cell, my model for, 124. 
Thoughts that breed in the dark, 

like the fishes in the Mammoth 

Cave, 2. 
Tinder-box, the old tin, 53. 
Tourgueneff, 121. 
Traditionists eliminate cause and 

effect from the domain of morals, 

265. 
Trilobite. as an emotional ano- 
dyne, 377. 
Two sides to consciousness, 266. 
University town, its soil clay and 

sand, 24 ; its four curses, ibid. 



Vernon, Foktescue, 34. 



418 



INDEX. 



W. 

Warren, General, 33. 
Washington Elm, and other elms, 

23. 
Water, looking at, a substitute for 

speech and thought, 371. 
" Week in a French country-house, ' ' 

189. 
Whips, the delight of rural youth, 

320. 
Wife, choice of, nature preferred to 

grace by Bishop Hall, 357. 
Williams, Colonel Elisha, a 

most notable man, 388. 
Wind-clouds and Star-drifts 

(poem), 169, 201, 230, 270, 302, 

334, 364. 
Wines, old Madeira, 120. 
Women prefer men to angels, 106 : 



womanly ones kindly critics, 

109. 
Women have more spiritual life 

than men, 218. 
Worcester' s Dictionary, 4, 9. 
Writer, a, like a lover, 41. 



Y. 

Yankees, pitch-pine and white- 
pine, 323. 

Young men, lonely, pitied by young 
girls, 155. 



Zend Avesta, the, and "Match- 
less Mitchel," 382, 383. 



THE END. 



